Scaling Hands-On Learning Principles in Manufacturing through Augmented Reality Disassembly and Inspection of a Consumer Product

Abstract Visualization, contextualization, and hands-on experiences are key to effective engineering education, and go hand-in-hand with the understanding of theoretical concepts. Learners must employ highly-developed visual and spatial thinking, yet teaching still often relies on two-dimensional boards and screens to render inherently three-dimensional concepts. Limitations to resources (e.g., equipment or machine shop access), geography, and safety considerations constrain the learner's opportunity to see or perform authentic hands-on activities. Augmented Reality (AR) provides a compelling opportunity to address these gaps because of its inherent three dimensionality, connection to the learner's physical context, scalability, and responsiveness. Unlike Virtual Reality, wherein interactive headsets cost hundreds of dollars each, many AR apps are hosted through the ubiquitous smartphone and would therefore increase the feasibility of implementation for a wider range of institutions of higher learning. However, AR instruction is a relatively new and growing research field and the assessment of learning gains has primarily focused on lower level cognitive skills. We present the pedagogy, design and development, and course implementation of a vision-based AR app to teach higher level cognitive skills in Bloom's taxonomy: apply, analyze, and evaluate. The app enables learners to manipulate, and virtually disassemble various parts and products (representing high-volume manufacturing processes), while receiving scaffolded guidance. We used an iterative process to design the app by implementing user feedback. The app has now been released into an online manufacturing course (Fundamentals of Manufacturing Processes). Learner reflections reveal engagement with manufacturing analysis, experience of the app, and attitudes towards AR technology. The development of a codebook was used to evaluate learner reflections with the goal of understanding the opportunities learners have to engage with manufacturing analysis. The iterative development of the codebook and results of applying the codebook to learner reflections are reported; overall inter-rater reliability computed using Cohen's Alpha is 85.48%. The experience feedback indicates that the activity was well received with 70% of users indicating an overall positive experience using the app. 79% of attitude feedback was positive indicating that learners are interested in using AR applications. AR-augmented instruction is a cost-effective approach that makes accessible time- and resource-constrained hands-on activities through virtualization, and bridges the gap between in-person and fully virtual instruction. Ongoing work is extending the AR platform to additional manufacturing processes, products, and components.