Abstract:

The pandemic of the COVID-19 infectious disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus has affected education systems around the world. It has led to the almost complete closure of many universities and colleges. To ensure the continuity of the teaching programme, there has been a shift from traditional teaching to operating remotely. Due to the state of the pandemic, economic activity has also been affected. In many cases, this has prevented students from carrying out apprenticeships. However, the Polish ministry responsible for university education (MNiSW) has taken the position that apprenticeships are an integral part of education and are compulsory. In this situation, the authorities of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of the Lublin University of Technology introduced a solution which made it possible to achieve the learning outcomes assigned to the apprenticeship in the curriculum. In place of traditional apprenticeships, which take place in your workplace, additional simulated classes and practical projects carried out by students under the supervision of academic teachers were introduced. Classes of 80 hours were held during the holiday period for 4 weeks.

The paper presents the concept of carrying out internships with the use of electronic communication means (remote work) starting from:
(1) preparation of the thematic areas of the internships,
(2) their selection by students,
(3) determination of the methodology of their realisation,
(4) preparation and configuration of the computer equipment in the laboratory,
(5) selection of tools, up to
(6) practical realisation of advanced projects concerning 3D computer graphics, 3D modelling and reverse engineering and
(7) the method of their completion.

Students could not prepare these projects at home on their own equipment due to the lack of licence for the software used and the high hardware requirements of the software used. The procedure in question was applied to the implementation of remote work placements, in the area of widely understood 3D computer graphics, by full-time and part-time students of the 1st degree of Computer Science at the Lublin University of Technology. The students carried out projects related to processing data in the form of a cloud of points from scanning initiatives in the Silk Road area to the characters that can be presented in the form of digital 3D models, omnidirectional panoramas and virtual reality. The data made available were obtained by the employees of the Department of Computer Science during scientific expeditions organised in 2017-2019 to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

The implemented concept of remote apprenticeship has proved to be an effective solution, which can also be successfully used to conduct projects and scientific research during the preparation of engineering and master's theses.

Keywords:

Apprenticeship, 3D graphics, Silk Road, remote working, COVID-19 pandemic.