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ABSTRACT As technological advances appear, it is desirable to integrate them into new engineering education teaching methods, aiming to enhance students' comprehension and engagement with complex subjects. Augmented reality (AR) emerges as a promising tool in this effort, offering students opportunities to visualize and conceptualize challenging topics that are otherwise too abstract or difficult to grasp. Within civil engineering curriculums, structural analysis, a junior‐level course forming the foundation of many other courses, poses challenges in visualization and understanding. This paper investigates the development of a mobile AR application intended to improve the conceptual understanding of structural analysis material. This application is designed to overlay schematic representations of structural components (i.e., beams, columns, frames, and trusses) onto images of iconic local campus buildings, allowing students to interactively explore exaggerated deflections and internal and external forces under various loading conditions. By contextualizing structural analysis calculations within familiar settings, the goal is to leverage a sense of relevance and place‐based attachments in students' learning. Furthermore, the paper examines the development process and usability of the AR application, providing insights into its implementation in educational settings. Experimental results, including comparisons with a control group, are analyzed to assess the efficacy of the AR application in improving students' understanding of structural analysis concepts. Furthermore, the paper examines the development process and usability of the AR application, providing insights into its implementation in educational settings. Perspectives from structural analysis faculty members are also discussed, shedding light on the potential benefits and challenges associated with integrating AR technology into engineering education. In addition, the study highlights the value of place‐based learning, wherein students engage with real‐world structures in their immediate environment, fostering deeper connections between theoretical concepts and practical applications. Overall, this research contributes to the growing body of literature on innovative teaching approaches in engineering education and highlights the potential of AR as a valuable tool for enhancing student learning experiences in structural analysis and related disciplines.
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Developing Augmented Reality Applications to Help Engineering Students Learn Spatial Structural Engineering Concepts
In traditional mechanics-oriented classes, experience and the literature have shown that students are often challenged with conceptualizing complex three-dimensional behavior. Within the context of structural engineering and mechanics, the challenges manifest in scenarios related to linking this three-dimensional behavior with member response such as elastic buckling of columns and critical locations for shear and moment. While solutions such as props and videos have been used as examples in the past with some success, these tools do not spatially represent complex structural behaviors and are also limited to one-way interaction where the learner receives the information but cannot interact with the tools. This project leverages mobile augmented reality (AR) designed to help students visualize complex behaviors (deformation, strain, and stress) structural components with various loading and boundary conditions. The tool, STRUCT-AR utilizes finite element models pre-loaded into a mobile AR application that allows users to interact and engage with the models on their mobile device or tablet. Our vision of this technology is to provide a complementary teaching tool for enhancing personalized learning wherein students can leverage the technology as a learning companion both within the classroom and outside to better understand structural behaviors and mechanisms that are challenging to convey in a traditional 2D learning environment. This study uses a pilot study to evaluate how undergraduate and graduate students who have previously taken an introductory course on structural system design perceived the app. The purpose of this pilot study is to evaluate the usability of the app, its ability to improve spatial visualization ability, and to collect feedback on the app functionality. Study participants were asked to complete a pre and post-survey and the IBM Post-Study System Usability Questionnaire after engaging with the AR app on an iOS tablet. Results discuss how participants viewed the app in terms of its usability and usefulness and recommendations for tool refinement. Future work will be focused on conducting another pilot study after tool refinement before app deployment in a classroom setting.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2306230
- PAR ID:
- 10537708
- Publisher / Repository:
- American Society of Engineering Education
- Date Published:
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- augmented reality, mixed reality, mobile augmented reality, structural design, structural mechanics, finite element method, visualization, personalized learning, engineering education
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- Portland, OR
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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