Haptics-augmented undergraduate engineering education: Implementation and evaluation

by He, Xingxi

The thesis developed a series of software simulations for undergraduate engineering education with the haptic device Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback 2. In the computer simulation, students set the parameters, predict the answers, interact with the animation and feel the results via joystick. The intention is to make teaching and learning more compelling, engaging, fun in this innovative way. Evaluation has been conducted in Undergraduate classes Physics 251, CE 220 Statics and ME 224 Dynamics at Ohio University. The evaluation results have shown the effectiveness of software design and the potential benefit to improve students' performance in specific engineering courses.