Design and Develop a Virtual Reality Physics Lab

Author: Jiayi Chen, Jiawei Liu
Mentor: Hao Tang
Institution: BMCC
Abstract: Laboratory experience is an important part of the process of education for engineering and science students. It can help students improve their practical ability and deepen their understanding of engineering and science concepts. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, students are not allowed to conduct experiments in a laboratory. Some students are asked to analyze and calculate the experimental data provided by instructors at home, other students may work on science experiment simulations, which have been developed with two-dimensional web interfaces. At the same time, because all these simulated experiments are calculated by the exact physical equations, the results are perfect. This is impossible in our real world. Therefore, we design and develop a Virtual Reality (VR) physics lab application to simulate a physics laboratory, which allows students to conduct physics experiments individually or collaboratively, to enhance their learning. Immersion into VR is almost like students are doing an experiment in the real world. Students can utilize various experimental equipment in the VR space to conduct experiments through the Internet without time and space restrictions. Additionally, they can share resources with other students, achieve cooperative experiments remotely, to improve the efficiency of learning and research.