Haptic-enabled Virtual Laboratory for Hands-on E-Learning: A Technology for and Beyond the Pandemic Era

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spurred drastic changes in the tele-education worldwide, especially Pakistan. Starting from the first phase of pandemic, Pakistani students have witnessed extensive use of tele-school and other e-learning platforms However, e-learning platforms are majorly characterized by audiovisual capability and thus, student learning is limited due to the lack of "experimentation and interaction". To cater this problem, we propose a haptics and teleoperation based inclusive teaching, comprising of a few introductory concepts of physics namely, friction, viscosity, and inertia as pilot cases. The mechanism employs single-master (teacher), multiple-slaves (students) system, each having access to affordable haptic device ‘Novint Falcon’. In teaching mode, apart from audio/visual, the demonstrator will explain concepts to students by interacting with force reflecting environments as master, whereas students feel the forces at their own haptic devices. Similarly, in other self-practice mode, students will independently perform experiments by haptic virtual interaction themselves.

I. Introduction

E-learning has gained huge popularity exponentially in recent COVID-19 crisis. We have observed increasing number of online platforms as well as physically existent colleges offering large variety of online courses for e-learners around the world. Though, transitioning to online learning was the only option amid the prevailing lockdown due to COVID-19 crisis [1], the experiences of students and teachers related to online learning were not found to be satisfactory especially, the case of developing countries [2]. The students faced the problems and difficulties in the comprehension of the taught concepts to the utmost satisfaction [4] especially, the case of developing countries [2]. The students faced the problems and difficulties in the comprehension of the taught concepts to the utmost satisfaction while, the instructors tried their best to retain the students’ attention and engagement. Moreover, some courses are inherently difficult to be integrated and taught through existing online platforms [3], [4].