Abstract:

Technologies of various industries are rapidly evolving, and it is important to adapt. That also applies to the education process where it is crucial to keep students immersed and entertained. To do so, teachers must constantly come up with new approaches to their lessons. The article presents a solution for integrating virtual reality (VR) into the education process. Specifically, integration into lessons of manufacturing systems design through a complex methodology consisting of various principles and methods. The main objective is to provide students with all the necessary information to design and visualize manufacturing systems using virtual reality tools. As a result, students can create a 3D virtual copy of a designed manufacturing system fully compatible with virtual reality hardware. The methodology is divided into four main parts. In the first part, students gather and analyse all necessary data to ensure the correct project execution. Required references and analysis can be quite vast, which demands a selection of the correct approach. Therefore, this part also focuses on developing the teamwork and time management skills of the students. In the second part of the methodology, students create 3D models of all necessary objects used in the manufacturing system, developing their 3D modelling skills further usable in many applications. The third part consists of the creation of a virtual environment itself. Students use a chosen game engine and modelled objects to create a virtual visualization of a designed manufacturing system. Besides, students must create scripts using a programming language to ensure basic functioning. The last part consists of the application testing, where students find and fix occurred shortcomings. The main goal of this solution is to innovate the teaching process of manufacturing system design. Making it more engrossing while allowing students to experience modern technologies. Therefore, the presented solution has been tested in a case study at the Department of Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Žilina. In this test, a group of industrial engineering students were given the assignment to create a virtual 3D copy of a designed manufacturing system. Their main objective was to create a virtual reality compatible visualization of the manufacturing system that allows users to walk through freely. They were provided manufacturing system 2D layout, list of used objects, necessary hardware, software, and presented methodology. With the provided methodology as a teaching aid, students completed the assignment. They followed every part of the methodology and its principles, achieving a more satisfying result in a shorter amount of time. As a result, the case study evaluated methodology potential and its possible shortcomings that need to be corrected. However, the presented methodology lays a basis for a full virtual reality integration into the design of a manufacturing system teaching process in the near future.

Keywords:

Education, virtual reality, design of manufacturing systems, Blender, Unity 3D.