An Educational Multi Media Task Force Project of the European Community
The pedagogical objectives of Brevie are to improve (1) the understanding of theoretical and practical interdependencies in mechatronic systems, (2) the competence of action in electro-pneumatics and (3) the communication about them on the level of skilled workers and engineers. The objectives will be achieved by a new intuitive User Interface which is expected to improve the learning process in production automation by supporting action oriented learning, social verbal and non-verbal communi-cation and the grasping (under-standing) of physical phenomena by really grasping them. The insight into the correspondence between concrete real and abstract virtual structures is expected to promote adequate mental models for the handling of complex technical systems.
The market for training in production automation, especially in the area of control of mechatronic systems, is characterised by a growing demand for the combination of virtual and real models, increasing safety and decreasing costs. The handling of these complex technical systems requires adequate mental models and practical experience of the hybridness or embeddedness of hard- and softwareprocesses.
The development of the Brevie learning environment for vocational training
and college education will be carried out incrementally by artec, Festo
Didactic, Superscape and Virtual Presence and evaluated at four application
sites Escola Superior Leiria, Stockport College, Friese Poort Drachten,
Schulzentrum am Holter Feld and artec. The project will start with a detailed
requirements analysis, design process and implementation of a reference
application "Pneumatic Circuit" from the area of control theory and practice
with elements of pneumatic, electric, and Programmable Logic Control (PLC),
driven by the experiences from previous multimedia projects of the partners.
The installation of this application will serve as the basis for the participation
of users of different educational levels (two colleges, two vocational
schools) in the following process. Three components will be developed and
integrated into a new complex construction kit:
The evaluation will be carried out at the application sites by users (teachers) and end-users (learners) supported by the IWP-ETHZ on a formative and a summative way. The formative evaluation will be based on interviews by IWP-Experts during the specification and development process and will influence the design. The quantitative evaluation will take place after the installation of the completed prototypical courseware of electro-pneumatics and the new learning environment by comparing the new approach with a conventionally trained control group. After validation, the Brevie environment and its components will be set up on a commercial basis targeting the broader vocational market of industrial automation.
Start Date & Duration
1. April 1998, 24 months