An Augmented Reality-Based User Interface Design for integrating Immersive Technology in STEM Education

In K-12 and engineering education, STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) programs equip the students to think critically by enabling them to see how the proposed solution fits with the problem statement. Lab experiments are the best way to learn about electrical circuits, digital electronics, civil and mechanical engineering ideas, and basics electronics behind the working of robotics and embedded systems. Several platforms such as Arduino, Raspberry-Pi etc. provide extensive learning experience that helps middle school, high school and university students to take their first step to understand programming, electronics and science. However, for beginners, there is a need for constant supervision by an efficient instructor due to the risk involved in the experimentation with hardware components. Such situations become cumbersome when the number of students is large in a physical laboratory setting. If such experimentation first can be done using an educational game-like application in a virtual environment with instructions through a user-interface, followed by real-time experimentation; it will aid to better understanding of concepts in science, especially electronics and embedded systems with requirement of only a little supervision. Also, the students would be able to understand the related concepts using an immersive application (using augmented/virtual reality) which can also be accessed remotely and enables a larger number of students to learn, explore and create Arduino-based circuits. This work thus introduces a game-based, adaptive UID (User Interface Design), named “Ed-Immerse”, that lets the students work with real-world design components in immersive environments for understanding STEM concepts through interactive visualization.