Paper ID #30625

Project-based Learning with Implementation of Virtual Reality for Green

Energy Manufacturing Education
Dr. Richard Chiou, Drexel University (Eng. & Eng. Tech.)
Dr. Richard Chiou is Associate Professor within the Engineering Technology Department at Drexel Uni-
versity, Philadelphia, USA. He received his Ph.D. degree in the G.W. Woodruff School of Mechanical
Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. His educational background is in manufacturing with an
emphasis on mechatronics. In addition to his many years of industrial experience, he has taught many
different engineering and technology courses at undergraduate and graduate levels. His tremendous re-
search experience in manufacturing includes environmentally conscious manufacturing, Internet based
robotics, and Web based quality. In the past years, he has been involved in sustainable manufacturing for
maximizing energy and material recovery while minimizing environmental impact.

Toshika Fegade, Drexel University (Eng. & Eng. Tech.)

I am a fine young lady in the field of robotics, machine learning, and computer vision. Currently, I
am a graduate student at Drexel University, majoring in systems (Electrical Engineering) and a minor in
Computer Science. I am working as a Research Assistant in the Engineering Technology department at
Drexel. I am currently working on improving ways of improving engineering education with Virtual Real-
ity techniques. I am working with Advisor to create two upcoming courses at Drexel - Advanced Robotics
course and Virtual Reality course. Persevering and hard-working are the best adjectives to describe me.
I wish to work in the interdisciplinary field of robotics with mechanical, medical and electrical. I have
hands-on experience with the number of medium to large-scale projects and work opportunities such
as ”Gesture controlled semi-humanoid robot”, ”Creating an outfit using fashion images using machine
learning”, ”Car detection with SVM and HOG”, ”Convolutional Neural Network for retinal vessel seg-
mentation using Keras library with TensorFlow backend on python and OpenCV on Ubuntu environment
to obtain segmentation”, ”Design of pick and place model”, etc. That research was published in the IEEE.
I am looking for exciting work or research opportunities in my interested areas. When I am not working
or studying, I like to explore with the telescope, read books, write on my blog and practice some dance
routine.

Ms. Yu-Chieh (Jamie) Wu, Drexel University

Third-year honors student studying BSMS in Electrical Engineering at Drexel University
Prof. Tzu-Liang Bill Tseng, University of Texas at El Paso

Dr. Tseng is a Professor and Chair of Industrial, Manufacturing and Systems Engineering at UTEP. His
research focuses on the computational intelligence, data mining, bio- informatics and advanced manu-
facturing. Dr. Tseng published in many refereed journals such as IEEE Transactions, IIE Transaction,
Journal of Manufacturing Systems and others. He has been serving as a principle investigator of many
research projects, funded by NSF, NASA, DoEd, KSEF and LMC. He is currently serving as an editor of
Journal of Computer Standards & Interfaces.

Dr. Michael G Mauk P.E., Drexel University

Michael Mauk is Assistant Professor in Drexel University’s Engineering Technology program.
Dr. Irina Nicoleta Ciobanescu Husanu, Drexel University

Irina Ciobanescu Husanu, Ph. D. is Assistant Clinical Professor with Drexel University, Engineer-
ing Technology program. Her area of expertise is in thermo-fluid sciences with applications in micro-
combustion, fuel cells, green fuels and plasma assisted combustion. She has prior industrial experience
in aerospace engineering that encompasses both theoretical analysis and experimental investigations such
as designing and testing of propulsion systems including design and development of pilot testing facility,

c American Society for Engineering Education, 2020

 Paper ID #30625

mechanical instrumentation, and industrial applications of aircraft engines. Also, in the past 10 years she
gained experience in teaching ME and ET courses in both quality control and quality assurance areas as
well as in thermal-fluid, energy conversion and mechanical areas from various levels of instruction and
addressed to a broad spectrum of students, from freshmen to seniors, from high school graduates to adult
learners. She also has extended experience in curriculum development. Dr Husanu developed laboratory
activities for Measurement and Instrumentation course as well as for quality control undergraduate and
graduate courses in ET Masters program. Also, she introduced the first experiential activity for Applied
Mechanics courses. She is coordinator and advisor for capstone projects for Engineering Technology.

c American Society for Engineering Education, 2020

 Project-based Learning with Implementation of Virtual Reality
for Green Energy Manufacturing Education

Abstract
This paper presents the project-based learning result of green energy manufacturing integrated
with virtual reality (VR). This work provides an innovative solution for optimizing learning
effectiveness and improving educational outcomes through the development of virtual models that
can be used and integrated into the existing renewable energy laboratory. The goal is to apply these
prototypical simulators to train undergraduate engineering students and professionals in wind
energy education; and to offer experiential learning opportunities in 3D modeling, simulation, and
visualization. The students were given multiple projects within the green energy manufacturing in
a course on Renewable Energy Systems. The final project was assigned to the students with the
topics on virtual reality modeling related to renewable energy, power systems or other engineering
topics. These projects have become a good example of student-centric green STEM program as
well as providing valuable virtual reality experience to the students. In addition to providing useful
lessons in teamwork and project management, the projects provide a working demonstration of a
renewable energy system. The interactive project-based learning gives students an incentive to
seek creative solutions to accomplishing project goals.

1. Introduction

This paper presents the project learning result of a laboratory course on green energy
manufacturing integrated with virtual reality (VR) in the Department of Engineering Technology
at Drexel University. Since green energy manufacturing is defined as “a system that integrates
product and process design issues with issues of manufacturing planning and control in such a
manner as to identify, quantify, assess, and manage the flow of environmental waste in materials
and energy with the goal of reducing and ultimately minimizing environmental impact while
maximizing resource efficiency,” increased environmental consciousness among manufacturing
industries helps to foster new techniques for streamlining processes and increased reusability [1-
4]. Connecting manufacturing devices and aggregating the data created is enabling manufacturers
to reduce overhead, conserve resources, increase profits and optimize operational efficiencies [5-
7].

Virtual reality industry is getting more recognition due to its application in various fields other
than gaming such as education, medical, entertainment, military, fashion, healthcare, business,
media, film, construction, sport, etc. Virtual reality in education has added another dimension for
students to explore and understand the core concept of a certain work application. Virtual reality
was mostly, initially used in education for topics such as virtual reality astronomy where they learn
about the solar system. This style of teaching is very appealing for young, tech-savy students who
enjoy using the latest technology. Their experience of studying turns into playing with technology
and learning at the same time and that is the key of improving their experience. This is also useful
for students who are slow-learners and have a particular style of understanding such as creatives
who find the learning process easier with colors, symbols and textures [8-11].

Students used VR to create components used in different renewable technology devices, such as
wind turbines. Wind turbines do not scale with size proportionally and the traditional way to test
a wind turbine design was to make it. Now, it is possible to design, model and simulate designs in
a real time VR environment. The blade design of the wind turbine used during lab experiments in
the class during term was not as efficient as it could be and can be better designed through 3D
modeling software to create a more effective and efficient wind turbine. Through an understanding
of aerodynamics and air flow, it is possible to generate an airfoil design for the blade of the wind
turbine, which induces lift by creating a low pressure, high velocity flow of air over its curved top
surface and a high pressure, low velocity pocket under the curved top surface, which will reduce
the amount of drag back into the fan, increasing efficiency of the fan. The overall length and width
of the new design is similar to the flat blade design, but because of its curvature it has less surface
area for the wind to contact it [12-15].

In preparing students for their future career, virtual reality experiences and hands-on training is an
important part of their education. VR research projects and laboratories are excellent teaching aids
for providing students with opportunities to implement the theory they learn in class. Educating
the younger generations about sustainable and clean energy sources is vital to living in a clean and
bright environment in the future. Design tasks were performed by teams of students in the
engineering and engineering technology programs after completing the same prerequisites. Each
team was asked to select wind or solar energy generation technology based on their interest and
experience. Students began their projects by identifying the main components of a given system
and building CAD models. Based on the loading type and the nature of the structure, they analyzed
force and stress and determined the size of the structure. Students were asked to design with VR
technology based on renewable energy type, operating environment, etc. and verify by simulation
[16-18]. For grading, a rubric was provided with an expected design content and steps to be
followed. The evidence of learning included a final project report with description, analysis,
experimental results, and power point presentation.

2. Design Process with Virtual Reality

Wind turbine design for power generation has its own challenges. Whenever there is a new design
or creation of new blade type, multiple factors affect the growth. Wind renewable source competes
with other renewable energy sources along with conventional as well. In past few years, there has
been higher investment in wind energy innovation. Turbines cause noise and pollution. They can
also cause damage to wildlife. It is necessary for designs to consider the inconvenience while
coming up with development in this area. Along with design improvements, it is necessary to
enhance aerodynamic performance, weatherability and resistance to environmental elements.
Therefore, it is very important to come up with rotor blade designs following same or more cost-
effective methods of production and same or cheaper materials following the most optimized
design giving increased efficiency and greater power output. Development of such design will
decrease the weight and cost of the turbine resulting in optimum design.
The overall goal for the project is to develop an innovative VR framework for project-based
learning with implementation of virtual reality for green energy manufacturing education. Wind
turbine works on simple principle of wind energy turning propeller like blades around rotor. The
rotor is connected to main shaft that is further connected to generator to create electricity. There
are many factors that affects this operation such as wind direction (upwind turbines face towards
the wind whereas downwind turbines face away), number of blades, rotations per minute, etc.
According to past 10 years data, cumulative wind power capacity in United States has increased
with an average of 30% per year and wind is soon is going to be the largest renewable generation
capacity of all others in United States.

Figure 1. The VR framework design and process flow diagram.

The learning experience for an undergraduate student engineering and technology class is shown
in Figure 1. As shown in the block diagram, first type of wind turbine is selected. There are mainly
two types of wind turbines. The SolidWorks 3D parts are saved as .stl files and these files are
imported to Blender where the origin is set to geometry, a process which aligns every part
corresponding to its origin instead of scaling it and placing it at a random point in the 3D space.
This file is later exported as .obj file from the Blender. The .obj file is imported as an asset to the
UNITY 3D game engine to begin the VR application design [16-18]. The basic workflow of the
project goes as given in Figure 1. Students needs to go through literature review and come up with
their idea. They decide the type of blade to design through their past research and decide the
number of blades required. There are two main types of blade designs.

Students perform design analysis and necessary calculations and start working on their 3D
SolidWorks design. Once their designing part is done, they save the file as .stl format. That file is
exported to blender to get .obj supported file since Unity3D does not support .stl format directly.
This step is crucial for the design to work in simulation. Once .obj file is ready, file is imported to
Unity 3D and certain scenarios are coded to perform simulations. Virtual reality provides
immersive and collaborative technique for students to take part into and work as a group on what
they learnt in the course class.

3. Modeling with SolidWorks

SolidWorks is a computer aided design and engineering software used to create and simulate 3D
models. Students were instructed to design a small-scale wind turbine in SolidWorks consisting of
five different parts: base, stem, turbine, axil and blade. Students decide on their respective models
after experimenting with different number and various shapes of turbine blades as shown in Figures
2-4. Figure 2 shows wind turbine designed by students with 3 blades. Figure 3 shows wind turbine
designed by students with 6 blades. Figure 3 (a) design is turbine with flat blades and (b) part is
design of turbine with curved blades. Figure 4 shows the design of turbine with 3 curved blades.
Some designs were concise and had the basic features of a standard wind turbine with 3 blades
(Figure 2), while others used 6-blades at 30-degree angles (Figure 3). Some constructed flat and
straight blades while others designed curved blades (Figure 4) as straight blades suffer from
increased drag force due to increased surface area to oncoming wind. Students were able to
simulate and observe that the Bernolli principle in action and how curved blades have less affected
surface area to oncoming wind allowing for lift force due to a pressure difference between the top
and bottom pockets of air around the blade.

(a) (b)
Figure 2. Turbine with 3 blades

(a) (b)
Figure 3. Turbine with 6 straight vs. curved blades
 (a) (b)
Figure 4. Turbine with 3 curved blades

After parts of the wind turbine are created individually, they are then assembled in SolidWorks as
well. The parts can be changed within the assembly then fitted together accordingly. The Mate
controller tool in SolidWorks is used to “link” the components and give them a point of reference
in space by restricting their movement. If every part is mated, they can no longer move freely. For
the function of the turbine, some students chose to not mate the axil for rotation. Instead, their
model is brought into SolidWorks’ motion study and added with motor properties to simulate
movement. Other students simulated wind flow by generating a wind tunnel in SolidWorks as
shown in Figure 5. They observed a greater force against the flat blade than the curved blade as
shown in Figure 6. Unfortunately, they were unable to gather data on the torque in the turbines as
the simulation was static only.

Figure 5. SolidWorks Wind Tunnel Setup

 (a) (b)
Figure 6. Wind flow through the flat vs. curved blades

Once the motion studies and simulations are completed, their models are exported as an STL file
and imported into Blender or any CAD exchanger software to create the OBJ files as shown in
Figure 7 below. Blender is an animation tool used for different 3D modeling applications and
assembling multiple models where the origin is set to geometry, a process which aligns every part
corresponding to its origin instead of scaling it and placing it at a random point in the 3D space.
Lastly, these OBJ models are be imported into Unity to be used in a VR application.

(a) (b)
Figure 7. Files imported in Blender

4. Simulating with Unity 3D

Unity is a VR environment where projects can be imported into rather accurate simulations of the
real world. C# scripts can be added as a component to each part of a model and animate movement
in Unity. Students were given a script to spin the turbine blades at a specific speed after setting a
wind parameter to the environment (Figure 8). To write such script in C# in Unity 3D, Rotate3D
command is used and parent child hierarchy is used. Rotor is selected as parent and all the blades
are added as child game objects to that. Another option of simulating movement was to record a
video of the animation in SolidWorks and import it into Unity to be animated in a 3D environment
(Figures 9 and 10).

Figure 8. Turbine imported into Unity

Figure 9. Video of 3D model on plane in Unity

Figure 10. Real time VR simulation in Unity

Through this process, students were able to familiarize themselves with the Unity software and
learn about its features such as its specific import file compatibility and orienting the plane to film
the VR scene. If they were given more time to dive in deeper with all of Unity’s capabilities and
write their own code, they might be able to simulate more realistic wind flow and real-life
applications of their turbine designs. Once their animations were completed, they can be exported
as a virtual reality project which can be viewed with the help of VR headset so the environment
could be used by others. This experience provides visual and motion stimuli as the VIVE headset
used is a user-immersive equipment that allows the students to observe their models not only in
3D but also more realistically in a given environment.

5. Simulating the Physical System

Department of Energy is leading our nation towards clean energy future and increasing industry
competitiveness through research, development and deployment of innovative technologies such
as 3D printing. SolidWorks parts are 3D printed and then used in physical system. 3D printing is
process of producing a three-dimensional solid object from digital file. A 3D printer layers semi-
molten material into the computerized shape – a process that offers improved design flexibility,
decreased energy consumption, and reduced time to market. In 3D design and printing process,
mold is designed using computer aided design (CAD) and a file is generated for BAAM to follow.
The BAAM machine extrudes heated composite material based on CAD file design layer-by-layer
until the component is fully developed. This process occurs for each piece of the mold. A layer of
fiberglass is applied on top of the mold, and excess material is machined off to achieve the desired
shape and smoothness. Heating duct work is installed and the mold pieces are assembled together.
The research blades are produced from the completed mold.

Figure 11. Blade Data File

There are few design constraints followed in SolidWorks such as blade length, measured from the
edge of the hub, should not exceed 2.5 inch. Blade height is limited by the thickness of the hub. It
should not exceed 0.25 inch. There are no constraints on blade width (0.7 inch). As explained
previously, SolidWorks is used to design 3D model. Students were asked to use Airfoil
Investigation Database. This database has few tools useful in development and creation of RC
aircraft. It is possible to find database of industrial blades either specific blade or by choosing a
random one. A list with various types of blades with various parameters such as thickness, camber,
lift coefficient, lift to drag ratio, stall angle, TE angle, LE radius, etc. are presented for selection.
Once students have selected a blade, they save it as .txt file as shown in Figure 11. In SolidWorks,
within features tab, curve through x, y, z are selected and previously saved .csv.txt file is opened.
In this scenario, z axis will remain flat as shown in Figure 12.

Figure 12. Blade file in SolidWorks

A close look at wind turbine blade will reveal that, it is having airfoil cross sections from root to
tip. The driving force of wind turbine is, lift force generated, when wind flows over such airfoils.
The basic principle involved with creating lift is the Bernoulli Principle. Lift force will be
perpendicular to apparent velocity. Generally, lift force increases with angle of attack. Along with
that undesirable drag force also increases. While tangential component of lift force supports blade
rotation, drag force opposes it. Therefore, a wind turbine can give maximum performance when
lift to drag ratio is maximum. This is called as, optimum angle of attack or pitch angle. Figure 13
shows the effect of pitch angle.

Figure 13. Effect of pitch angle

6. Student Learning Outcomes and Analysis

The final project idea for an ET course with virtual reality was given to students in groups so that
they could play around with their knowledge in wind energy, understand and test concepts in the
area. A total of 3 groups among 12 students followed given procedures and wrote concluding
reports on their green energy projects. They were instructed to design a small-scale wind turbine
using a 3D CAD modeling software, to simulate it with VR, and to compare the simulated data
with calculated data from the course labs for efficiencies, power output and wind speed. The
process included deciding on the type of model and number of blades for the turbine, performing
analysis on the chosen components, and showing how the wind power will be increased from the
Bernoulli Principle.

Overall, the feedback received at the end of the term from the participating students was largely
positive with regards to the experiments involving renewable energy systems. Many students
appreciated the ease with which the wind turbine and solar cell panel can be designed and tested
in an attempt to deal with issues as they arise. Without a doubt, all of the students were exposed to
the green product topic surrounding materials, fabrication, testing, and measurements. Students
are required to analyze, design, simulate, and build a completely functional system by the end-of-
term project. Students commented that they enjoyed working in the virtual reality project on wind
turbine. Students’ evaluation was conducted at the last week of the class and remarked an overall
4.3 out of 5.0 on their experience. Some students also provided feedback within the response
portion of the survey with statements such as “Very Good”, “Very interesting project”, “very
fascinating and informative project”, and “Wow I really learned so much about the future
industry”. Even though these might not be tangible results, we believe that 86% is a satisfactory
amount to prove an overall affirmation for the proposed application of VR.

Difficulties in Design: Most of the difficulties present in our design stage would be Unity’s specific
import file compatibility as well as the compatible files still not being able to be imported properly
because of windows video file decoder. This led to a couple hours of the project being dedicated
solely to getting the video file into Unity and functioning properly. Another design aspect that had
to be considered was the orientation of the plane as well as the main camera that is filming the VR
“scene”. This was mostly due to the unfamiliarity with Unity software.

7. Conclusion

All in all, this project was effective in demonstrating the advantages of using VR software as well
as how to implement your own projects into a VR environment. Analyzing the curved blade vs.
the flat blade enables you to see that curved blades yield far better efficiency results due to their
geometry. The design process was a challenge but the end goal was met in that students were able
to visualize 3D design in a 3D VR environment. This project was a good demonstration of the
whole wind turbine design process, from the 3D design all the way to the VR analysis. By
incorporating Virtual Reality into Green Energy Manufacturing Education, this interactive method
of learning brings about benefits to both engineering students and professionals. The ability to
model and simulate projects such as the wind turbine presents the tools and incentive for students
to come up with creative and innovative solutions. This style of teaching can be appealing for the
younger generation and motivating for slow learners, thus optimizing its effectiveness and
improving the overall educational outcome.
Acknowledgement

This work has been supported by the US Department of Education under the joint MSEIP Program
with the University of Texas at El Paso, PR/Award No.: P120A180101. The authors wish to express
sincere gratitude for their financial support.

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