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Implication of Developing Digital Twins to Improve Students’ Learning Experiences

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Conference

2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Baltimore , Maryland

Publication Date

June 25, 2023

Start Date

June 25, 2023

End Date

June 28, 2023

Conference Session

Architectural Engineering Division Technical Session

Tagged Division

Architectural Engineering Division (ARCHE)

Page Count

11

DOI

10.18260/1-2--43568

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/43568

Download Count

350

Paper Authors

biography

Mohammad Heidarinejad Illinois Institute of Technology

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Mohammad Heidarinejad, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, IL. Mohammad received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and his M.Sc. in Architectural Engineering, both from Pennsylvania State University. Previously he was a research assistant professor and research associate in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Maryland College Park. Mohammad is recipient of several prestigious awards, including the ASHRAE New Investigator Award as well as IBPSA-USA Emerging Technology Award in support of his early career research. Mohammad is a registered professional engineer (PE). Mohammad teaches several courses such as Instrumentation and Measurements in Building Science, Energy Conservation in Building Design, HVAC Systems Design, and Control of Building Environmental Systems. Mohammad is also the Co-Director of The Built Environment Research Group (BERG) at Illinois Institute of Technology where he leads research in the areas of building energy and environmental systems, building automation systems, computational fluid dynamics, and indoor air quality. He is also a university wide award, named Michael J. Graff Award for Innovation in Teaching, at IIT for his novel teaching.

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biography

Ankit Srivastava Illinois Institute of Technology

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Prof. Srivastava is an Associate Professor in the department of Mechanical, Materials, and Aerospace Engineering. His expertise is in the general area of mechanics with specific interests in wave propagation, homogenization, metamaterials, and data driven modeling. His pedagogical interests lie in utilizing emerging technology to provide modern and relevant learning experiences to students.

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Abstract

This paper focuses on demonstrating how course modules could be developed via digital twins to improve students’ learning experiences. The authors have taught a course named “creating digital twins of the IIT campus” two times in fall 2021 and spring 2022 and have leveraged inexpensive resources as well as open access and open-source tools to engage students in the process. The course started with utilizing iPads equipped with low-cost Lidar sensors to create the digital twins of campus. Students from different disciplines, ranging from architecture, engineering, computer science and engineering deployed different software packages, including but not limited to AutoDesk ReCap, AutoDesk Revit, Blender, Cloud Compare, Rhino, and Open3D package in Python to construct points cloud data in a 3D map space for campus buildings. Students created, collected, and combined the 3D data which will form the foundational layer of the digital twin. Then, they demonstrated the implications of these scans to: (i) create an entire scan of a new building on campus and develop building drawings (e.g., AutoCAD) and models (i.e., Revit); (ii) develop a game to utilize the scans; (iii) conduct asset management of the campus resources enabling to visualize the rooms, space information, and additional layers of information such as schedule of classes or inventory of furniture; (iv) utilize the scans to infer knowledge from the domain; and (v) demonstrate the use of the scanned data for the virtual reality (VR) for visualization, game development, other applications using Oculus headsets. This active learning process was under instructors’ supervision, and they continuously provided guidance on how to work through the steps of problem-solving from the perspective of different disciplines. Students worked as teams to also identify stakeholders that would benefit from potential solutions. We also utilized a novel dissemination process and asked students to create YouTube videos. Overall, this paper is an ongoing effort to expand these active teaching usecases and include them in other courses, especially Architectural Engineering courses, in the near future to enable students to benefit from these functionalities in a digital twins domain.

Heidarinejad, M., & Srivastava, A. (2023, June), Implication of Developing Digital Twins to Improve Students’ Learning Experiences Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--43568

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