Abstract:

HOBIT indicates Hybrid Optical Bench for Innovative Teaching. It is made of a technical table on which fake opto-mechanical components can be plugged and ajusted. A numerical model enables to compute light propagation through any optical bench built from scratch and the setup displays not only the resulting optical pattern but many addition information to help learning/teaching.

In a first part, we will present HOBIT as a general concept and we will then illustrate its cutting-edge characteristics to support pedagogical innovations in learning and teaching optics through two selected exemples. The first one is the well-known Michelson interferometer that HOBIT enables to build step by step up to an advanced stage in which the setup is routinely used as a spectrometer. The second one is a bench dedicated to the polarization of light that HOBIT enables to "see" for the very first time while manipulating optical components such as polarizers and retarders.

We will highlight what can be done with HOBIT that is not possible in practice with real benches and we will finally describe our methodology for assessing HOBIT and some preliminary results of this assessment.

Keywords:

HOBIT, optics, augmented reality, transformation.