Integration of a Real-Time Remote Experiment Into a Multi-Player Game Laboratory Environment

While real-time remote experiments have been used in engineering and science education for over a decade, more recently virtual learning environments based on game systems have been explored for their potential usage in educational laboratories. However, combining the advantages of both these approaches and integrating them into an effective learning environment has not been reported yet. One of the challenges in creating such a combination is to overcome the barriers between real and virtual systems, i.e. to select compatible platforms, to achieve an efficient mapping between the real world and the virtual environment and to arrange for efficient communications between the different system components. This paper will present a pilot implementation of a multi-player game-based virtual laboratory environment that is linked to the remote experimental setup of an air flow rig. This system is designed for a junior-level mechanical engineering laboratory on fluid mechanics. In order to integrate this remote laboratory setup into the virtual laboratory environment, an existing remote laboratory architecture had to be redesigned. The integrated virtual laboratory platform consists of two main parts, namely an actual physical experimental device controlled by a remote controller and a virtual laboratory environment that was implemented using the ‘Source’ game engine, which forms the basis of the commercially available computer game ‘Half-Life 2’ in conjunction with ‘Garry’s Mod’ (GM). The system implemented involves a local device controller that exchanges data in the form of shared variables and Dynamical Link Library (DLL) files with the virtual laboratory environment, thus establishing the control of real physical experiments from inside the virtual laboratory environment. The application of a combination of C++ code, Lua scripts [1] and LabVIEW Virtual Instruments makes the platform very flexible and expandable. This paper will present the architecture of this platform and discuss the general benefits of virtual environments that are linked with real physical devices.