vObjects: A Virtual Tool for Grasping Engineering Concepts – Dr Diana Bairaktarova, Virginia Tech

Sep 18, 2020 | education & training, engineering and tech

Original Article Reference

https://doi.org/10.33548/SCIENTIA504

About this episode

Engineering students can benefit greatly from interacting with physical objects whose attributes mimic those of real-world systems. So far, however, objects that do this effectively have proven to be extremely difficult to create. To solve the problem, Dr Diana Bairaktarova at Virginia Tech suggests that taught engineering courses could recreate practical situations more reliably using virtual objects, or ‘vObjects’. If her approach becomes widely adopted, it could transform how engineering students learn to apply their skills to complex, often unpredictable scenarios.

 

 

 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International LicenseCreative Commons License

What does this mean?

Share: You can copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format

Adapt: You can change, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.

Credit: You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made.

Related episodes

Dr. Serena Kuang | Inside the Kidney’s ‘Countercurrent’ Mystery: A New Model for Teaching and Studying Water Balance

Dr. Serena Kuang | Inside the Kidney’s ‘Countercurrent’ Mystery: A New Model for Teaching and Studying Water Balance

Our kidneys filter blood to remove waste and can regulate water balance. We’ve all experienced that when we’re thirsty urine becomes concentrated, signalling us to drink more water. When we drink excess water, we urinate more frequently, and the urine is diluted. The kidneys’ ability to concentrate or dilute urine according to our body’s need relies on countercurrent multiplication (or CCM), a complex process that generates a salt concentration gradient in the kidney. However, CCM is challenging to teach and understand. Dr. Serena Kuang, a researcher and educator at Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine, has developed a more understandable CCM model and clears up errors in existing explanations making CCM easier to understand and teach.

Dr. Robert Tomkowski | Investigating How Dimpled Surfaces Can Minimise Friction

Dr. Robert Tomkowski | Investigating How Dimpled Surfaces Can Minimise Friction

Dimpled surfaces offer a useful and easily implementable way to reduce friction between lubricated surfaces as they slide over each other. Through cutting-edge simulations, Dr. Robert Tomkowski and colleagues at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden explore how the microscale structures of surface dimples can be optimized to minimize friction. Their findings could help to reduce wear in mechanical systems, while also making them more energy efficient.

Professor Suzanne Scarlata – Dr. Nima Rahbar | How a Biological Enzyme Could Help Concrete to Heal Itself

Professor Suzanne Scarlata – Dr. Nima Rahbar | How a Biological Enzyme Could Help Concrete to Heal Itself

As an inherently brittle material, concrete often needs to be replaced after just a few decades: driving a demand which incurs significant costs for Earth’s climate. Through their research, Professors Suzanne Scarlata and Nima Rahbar at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Massachusetts, introduce a new mechanism that allows concrete to quickly repair itself, with the help of an enzyme vital to the function of living cells. This approach could help to reduce the world’s insatiable demand for concrete.

Lixiang Zhang | Seeing the Full Picture: The CPS-Merge Approach to Assess Complex Datasets

Lixiang Zhang | Seeing the Full Picture: The CPS-Merge Approach to Assess Complex Datasets

In the age of big data, and particularly in specialisations such as artificial intelligence, biology, and medicine, researchers often generate large and complex datasets that are challenging to analyse. This is particularly true for multi-view data, otherwise known as multimodal data, which are data that encompass multiple perspectives concerning a single entity or phenomenon. In the case of single-cell genomics, for instance, researchers can measure a huge range of different characteristics concerning an individual cell, such as RNA expression levels or protein levels. While multi-view datasets provide vast amounts of information, they are difficult to analyse because looking at each type of data within them provides only a small part of the overall picture. A new computational approach called Covering Point Set-merge analysis, or CPS-merge analysis for short, has been developed by Lixiang Zhang of Pennsylvania State University and colleagues, and it aims to assist researchers to merge the different types of data present in multi-view datasets into one coherent and meaningful set of results, without misrepresenting the individual contributions of each type of data.

Increase the impact of your research

• Good science communication helps people make informed decisions and motivates them to take appropriate and affirmative action.
• Good science communication encourages everyday people to be scientifically literate so that they can analyse the integrity and legitimacy of information.
• Good science communication encourages people into STEM-related fields of study and employment.
• Good public science communication fosters a community around research that includes both members of the public, policymakers and scientists.
• In a recent survey, 75% of people suggested they would prefer to listen to an interesting story than read it.

Step 1 Upload your science paper

Step 2 SciPod script written

Step 3 Voice audio recorded

Step 4 SciPod published