Virtual labs: a new tool in the Education

Experience of Technical University of Madrid

Daniel Fernández-Avilés, Diego Dotor, Daniel Contreras, Jose Carlos Salazar

d.fernandezaviles@upm.es, diego.dotor.jara@upm.es, daniel.contreras@upm.es, josecarlos.salazar@upm.es

Gabinete de Tele-Educación
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid
Madrid, España

Abstract²The Technical University of Madrid requires the
use of laboratories which due to their dangerousness, duration or
control of the developed processes are difficult to perform in real
life. For this reason, we have developed several 3D laboratories in
virtual environment. The laboratories are built on open source
platform OpenSim. In this paper it is exposed the different
laboratories of our University, we see small fragments of various
laboratory practice, as well as the most representative parts of
each practice. The laboratories selected are electronics, chemical
experimentation, physical and topography.
Keywords— Education,OpenSim, Virtual Laboratories, 3D
application.
I. INTRODUCTION
As a result of the work of Educational Innovation Project,
GridLabUPM was created in 2010. This platform hosts a
number of virtual laboratories, where users can make real
teaching practices of the different colleges of the Technical
University of Madrid. The platform is built on open source
software OpenSim [1], which manages the 3D virtual worlds.
The programming language used to provide functionality to
objects in the virtual world is Linden Scripting Language. On
the other hand, users require a client application, which is used
as a viewer and shows the user the graphical representation of
the virtual world. This type of application allows users to
connect to the virtual world, we recommend using Firestorm
[2]. Entering the GridLabUPM, users appear in a central region
of welcome, consisting of buildings, a virtual meeting point
and a region of tutorial. The main objective of this region (see
Fig. 1) is that new users will adapt to the management of the
virtual environment.
Nowadays, thirteen laboratories have been completely
developed in the following areas: electronics [3],
biotechnology, physics, chemistry, biology, robotic,
agroforestry, continuum mechanism [4] and industrial. Eleven
laboratories are under exploitation.
II. ADVANTAGES OF VIRTUAL LABS
The main advantages of using virtual labs:
x To facilitate the realization of teaching practices via the
Internet, anytime and anywhere.
x To encourage autonomous student work, as well as
customizing the learning process.
x To enable the access to the equipment full-time.
x To offer practices that in real life would not be possible
to perform due to safety reasons such as handling of
dangerous materials (radioactive, nuclear, electrical or
biological), the cost of the equipment involved or the
access of the environment.
x To provide access to external groups: high school
students, students from other universities, people with
disabilities.
III. CONTENT OF THE DEMOSTRATION
In this section we will explain each virtual laboratory
briefly. Moreover, we will see the educational contents of
virtual practice and the most interesting part of each laboratory.
The virtual laboratories will be shown with videos, and if the
Internet connection has enough bandwidth for the use of
laboratories, we will show the laboratories in live.

A. Chemical Experimentation Laboratory

Figure 1. Welcome region
The chemical experimentation laboratory is formed by
three buildings. In one of them, the avatar can access different
audiovisual materials, and this building has a lab where basic
operations and simple experiments can be carried out. In the
other two buildings, lab practices with students of the Civil

978-1-4673-8246-5/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE 24-26 February 2016, UNED, Madrid, Spain

2016 13th International Conference on Remote Engineering and Virtual Instrumentation (REV)
Page 271
Engineering Degree can be performed. The students can
perform a lab practice for the determination of metals in
polluted soils by sample digestion in a microwave oven and
subsequent analysis by ICP-AES [5].
Figure 2. Chemical Experimentation Laboratory
B. Electronics Laboratory
The electronics laboratory (eLabs3D) is a learning
supplement that allows students to acquire many of the
practical skills that are gained in a classroom laboratory in the
area of analog electronics. The student has available a replica
of the instruments that are used in the laboratory and a set of
analog circuits. They can interact realistically making changes
to their settings and measures to check the operation of such
circuits.
Figure 3.Electronics Laboratory
C. Physical Laboratory
The physics laboratory is developed with modular design,
grouping related activities in a particular physical concept
called learning modules. Each module consists of activities
theoretical, practical and self-assessment. The first practice is
based on the gyroscopic effect. The first room has a virtual
screen in which the basic theoretical concepts that explain the
movement of a gyroscope are projected. In other room, where
there is a set of spinning tops with different geometry on which
can represent and manipulate the different parameters that
affect spinning tops movement. Finally, using the principles of
gyroscopic effect, you should get a helicopter and manipulate it
to describe certain route.
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2016 13th International Conference on Remote Engineering and Virtual Instrumentation (REV)
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Figure 4. Physical Laboratory
D. Topography Laboratory
The topography laboratory enables students carry out their
topographical observations virtually. The aim of the practice is
the topographic observation of points on the ground, measuring
angles and distances to obtain their planimetric and altimetric
coordinates. For this purpose, students observe from a
topographical station of known coordinates, using two
reference points.
Figure 5. Topographical station.
REFERENCES
[1] OpenSimulator. In: http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Main_Page/, visited on
December 2014.
[2] Firestorm. In: http://www.firestormviewer.org/, visited on January 2013.
[3] Carpeño, A., López, S., Arriaga, J. (2014) Using Remote Laboratory
eLab3D for a Broader Practical Skills Training in Electronics. In 11th
International Conference on Remote Engineering and Virtual
Instrumentation (REV), 2014 IEEE, pages 98-99.
[4] Gonzalez, B., Mosquera, J.C., Ramírez, J.A., Fernández-Ordoñez, D.,
Fernández-Avilés, D. (2014). The virtual room as an opportunity to
support collaborative learning in the area of knowledge of continuum
mechanics. In 7th International Conference of Education, Research and
Innovation, 2014, pages 1764-1768.
[5] S. García-Salgado, J.C. Salazar Calderón, R. Torralba Marco (2015).
Virtual lab practice for quantitave analasys ofmetals in polluted soils.
INTED2015 Proceedings, (pp. 2141-2147).
24-26 February 2016, UNED, Madrid, Spain