The project vScientist is part of the EU project CORTEX2, which is a unique EU project that sets the basis for future extended collaborative telepresence to allow for remote cooperation in numerous industries, both for productive work and education and training.

The idea of CORTEX2 merges the concepts of classical video-conferencing with extended reality, where real assets such as objects, machines or environment can be digitalised and shared with distant users for teamworking in a real-virtual continuous space.

Extended Reality (XR) is a groundbreaking technology that combines real and virtual environments, revolutionising various industries, including education. The project vScientist offers unique immersive experiences for users, and in the context of teaching, holds immense potential to transform traditional classrooms into interactive and engaging learning spaces.

The project offers a powerful form of interactive visualisation that immerses the user into the dataset, allowing the user to select the desired view naturally through head translations and rotations and providing the user with depth perception through distinct images for the left and right eyes with appropriate disparity.

The benefits of using vScientist in teaching include the following:

  1. Enhanced Engagement: XR provides an unparalleled level of engagement by transporting students into immersive virtual environments. Through AR, MR, and VR, students can dissect investigate scientific concepts, or engage in virtual Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations. This hands-on approach stimulates curiosity, promotes active learning, and increases student motivation.
  2. Multisensory Learning: XR technology leverages multiple senses, facilitating multisensory learning experiences. Visual and auditory stimuli combined with tactile interactions create a holistic learning environment. For istanse, through vScientist, students can visualise and interact with 3D models in a wind-tunnel, enhancing their understanding of aerodynamics.
  3. Experiential Learning: XR allows students to experience scenarios that would otherwise be challenging or impossible to access. By virtually transporting students to different a virtual world, XR enables experiential learning. This means that users can interact with digital twins enabling active learning.
  4. Personalised Education: XR enables personalised learning experiences by catering to individual student needs and preferences. Teachers can customise content, adjust difficulty levels, and provide real-time feedback, tailoring the learning process to each student. This adaptability fosters inclusive education, accommodating diverse learning styles and abilities.
  5. Collaborative Learning: XR facilitates collaborative learning by connecting students in shared virtual spaces. In particular, through CORTEX2, students can collaborate on group projects, solve problems, and interact with virtual objects in real-time. This promotes teamwork, communication skills, and peer-to-peer learning, preparing students for the collaborative nature of the modern workforce.

The developed workflow of the project vScientist, part of the EU project CORTEX2, was tested for evaluating how extended reality and telecooperation can enhance education. Testing included the deployment of the new software for experimental wind tunnel tests for an aerofoil, which is considered to be a classic test case for students of fluid dynamics and are applicable across multiple engineering degree programs. The online virtual wind tunnel has given the students the opportunity to immerse into a virtual experiment and observe the underpinning physics of complex, unsteady, three-dimensional phenomena such as shock waves.

This project which is a collaboration between the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) and MultiFluidX and is part of the EU project CORTEX2, which is a unique EU project that sets the basis for future extended collaborative telepresence to allow for remote cooperation in numerous industries, both for productive work and education and training. CORTEX2 is an eight-million-euro initiative funded by the European Commission through the Horizon Europe research and innovation programme. The consortium is composed of 10 organisations across seven countries that will work together for 36 months. Read more at cortex2.eu