UTSA, Tec de Monterrey tap virtual reality tools for labs

The project, entitled "Exploring Online Learning in VR-Supported STEM Laboratories," received a one-year seed grant of $80,000, split evenly between UTSA and Tec de Monterrey. The aim behind the collaborative project is to enable real-time interaction on hands-on projects between people in different physical locations.

"The goal is to create virtual reality laboratories where we can have students participate and perform experiments together," said co-principal investigator Kevin Desai, UTSA assistant professor of computer science and SDS core faculty member.

Collaboration is a key component of Desai's virtual labs, but the UTSA-Tec de Monterrey project promotes something even more important: accessibility and inclusivity. Experiments require equipment, and equipment requires money - two things that are in short supply in many schools.

"There are schools and community colleges that avoid or skip experiments, because the equipment is expensive and they don't have the funds for it," Desai said. "So that is another major advantage of having online, interactive STEM laboratories."

Desai had been thinking about the project for about seven years, but it took the extreme isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic for this kind of VR collaboration to materialize.

"That's what COVID led to," Desai explained. "Everybody was at home, and we got to do our work, but the collaboration aspect was left out, and that's basically what we're targeting in an online setting."

He added, "Can we put people together in the same virtual environment? Can they interact with each other? Can they interact with different virtual objects or even share the objects and perform experiments?"

To answer these questions, Desai and his fellow researchers will complete three primary tasks. The first is generating avatars, or virtual representations, of the participating students. While video game players have been creating and customizing characters for years, the challenge is making these avatars resemble users in real time. To maintain academic and professional decorum, Desai must ensure that each person working in the virtual lab looks like themselves instead of an imaginary character.

While Desai works on the techniques necessary to develop lifelike avatars, designing the virtual environment will fall to his co-principal investigator, John Quarles, also a professor in UTSA's computer science department and an SDS core faculty member. Together, they will ensure that two chemistry students can pass a virtual beaker to each other through a wall - or across an ocean - using little more than a laptop, cameras and VR headsets.

Finally, the researchers will address the most important question of all: Are virtual labs a viable educational tool? Enter the Tec de Monterrey team, Genaro Zavala-Enríquez, professor and research lab director, and Guillermo Chans, an assistant professor. Both faculty members are affiliated with the Institute for the Future of Education, one of Tec de Monterrey's strategic initiatives to promote educational innovation. They will measure the academic performance of the students in the virtual laboratory and compare it to students working in a traditional chemistry lab setting. They will also help determine factors such as the experiments the researchers will perform and how many participating students they'll need to recruit.

Combining AI and educational research is exactly the type of interdisciplinary project the UTSA School of Data Science strives to foster, and the collaboration with Tec de Monterrey is a perfect fit for the SDS, the only data science school of its kind in the United States at a Hispanic Serving Institution.

"The relationship with UTSA contributes to expanding the frontiers of knowledge, applying cutting-edge knowledge to solve society's most challenging problems, and training future leaders who are prepared to work in an entrepreneurial and innovative way," said Carlos Lugo, manager of international affairs at Tec de Monterrey.

Desai says he feels privileged to work together with Tec de Monterrey as they dive into this cutting-edge research.

"This is a collaborative setup that can be applied anywhere, it doesn't have to be a chemistry laboratory; it doesn't even have to be a laboratory," he said. "Theoretically, it can also be expanded to any kind of training such as military training - anything that needs physical interaction. This research opens the door for our team to dive into that."

Opening doors is another important aspect of this project. Desai mentioned he has previously applied for funding for his virtual lab, but many grant providers are still slow to embrace virtual collaboration, even in a post-COVID world.

"This project will definitely advance that particular line of research and make everybody realize we need this collaborative aspect of VR," he said.

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