POINT VR
Physics Outreach and Instruction through New Technologies (POINT) is an ICASU project aimed at generating interest in physics for middle school and high school students through virtual reality (VR). Our goal is to increase student engagement with science and encourage more students to pursue AP and college physics courses.
This project includes three major goals:
- To investigate the benefits of using VR to explain physics in local classrooms.
- To develop further simulations to explain the fundamental physics of gravity and general relativity.
- To incorporate existing VR science demonstrations into outreach programs.
What is virtual reality?
Virtual reality (VR) allows users to experience a computer generated simulation or game in three dimensions. Head mounted displays, like the Oculus Quest, allow users to be fully immersed in the experience, and handheld controllers allow them to interact with their environment.
Benefits of using virtual reality
In VR, students can see demonstrations across a wide range of physical scales that would not be possible with table top demos. This feature makes VR an ideal platform for teaching students about gravity. Research has shown that students who are taught using VR experience many educational benefits, beyond the fact that it is fun. Below is a partial list of recent studies on the subject.
- A meta-analysis of 29 studies of immersive VR (using a head mounted display) found that the majority reported VR was more effective than, or at least on par with, traditional pedagogical methods (i.e. slideshows, lectures, 2D videos) [ Hamilton et. al 2021 ].
- Students who watched a video in a 3D immersive environment scored much higher in a learning outcome test than those who watched the same video on a 2D screen [ Rupp et. al 2019 ].
- Virtual reality increases feelings of technology related self-efficacy, which can impact student’s confidence when approaching STEM [ Ball et. al 2018 ].
- Virtual reality increases engagement and interest in the subject, facilitating discussions between experts and non-experts [ Kersting et. al 2020 ].
This body of research presents a compelling case that even a single classroom visit can have an impact on student engagement.
Publications
1. GR in VR: Using immersive virtual reality as a learning tool for general relativity
American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference proceedings 2023
Abstract: According to general relativity, gravity can be understood as a curvature of spacetime in response to the presence of matter and energy. Students often struggle to visualize the geometry of curved spacetime. The standard demonstration used to aid in visualization, that of a ball on an elastic sheet, is fundamentally flawed and may lead to misconceptions. Recent research suggests that virtual reality can improve understanding of spatially complex or abstract concepts. We hypothesize that an interactive virtual reality demonstration involving masses in a curved 3D spatial grid, with clocks representing the relative passage of time, would support improved conceptual understanding and impact attitude among students learning general relativity compared to traditional methods. To test this hypothesis, undergraduate students with no formal experience with general relativity are recruited to evaluate the virtual reality simulation. The students first take a questionnaire to determine a baseline for their conceptual understanding of general relativity, with confidence-scaled multiple choice and written response questions. The experimental group experiences an interactive virtual reality demonstration in which the subjects can move objects through space and time to visualize how mass curves spacetime. An instructor leads the control group through the standard ball on a sheet demo while delivering content orally. Students in both groups are prompted by an instructor to explore the relationship between mass, gravity, and time, guided by a set of conceptual questions. Immediately after the demonstrations, students complete the same questionnaire and a survey about learner attitude and simulation usability. Few previous studies focus on the conceptual understanding of general relativity, and even fewer examine the possibility of immersive learning as a tool for teaching this topic. Our work addresses this gap by designing a novel immersive technique for visualizing relativistic effects and comparing this technique to existing non-immersive methods of instruction.
2. Visualizing polarization effects of gravitational waves using particle rings and surfaces in virtual reality
International Symposium on Visual Computing Conference proceedings 2024
Abstract: In some modified theories of gravity, gravitational waves may contain up to six polarizations. These different polarizations determine the pattern with which the gravitational waves stretch and squeeze spacetime, both perpendicular to and along the direction of propagation. Given the multi-dimensional nature of these distortions and the fact that they are not visible to the naked eye, immersive virtual reality is a useful tool for visualizing them. In this work, we introduce the first visualization tool allowing users to explore all six gravitational wave polarizations. This interactive and immersive virtual reality experience features three different visualization modes intended to illustrate the different patterns of distortion for each polarization, for arbitrary combinations of the polarizations, and for combinations of polarizations that correspond to specific theories of gravity.
Please see the video below about this visualization.
680
Number of people who have seen the VR experience alone
449
Number of people who participated in the full classroom demonstration
1129
Total number of participants reached by this program to date
List of past demonstration locations: Urbana High School, Schlarman Academy, Science at the Market, Astronomy camp for high school girls, WYSE summer camp, Midwest Relativity Meeting, ICASU Conference, Astrofest, CUWiP, Transient and Variable Universe Conference, April APS.
Developing a virtual reality simulation
We are currently working to develop our own interactive VR experience to teach students about general relativity. The concepts included in the simulation will be:
-
Spacetime is a smooth fabric.
-
The curvature of this spacetime is what we recognize as a gravitational field.
- A good description of general relativity is: “Spacetime tells matter how to move; matter tells spacetime how to curve.” - John Wheeler
-
We can get ripples in the fabric of spacetime. These ripples are called gravitational waves and they can teach us a lot about the Universe.
-
General relativity is a necessary extension of Newtonian gravity, and yet we believe it is still incomplete.
Our simulation will address all of these concepts in short chapters, designed to be accessible to middle school and high school students. Volunteers from the Siebel School of Computing and Data Science and physics department are already working on the first chapter using Unity. Eventually, the code and simulation will both be made public for anyone who wants to use them.
Coding objectives for the first chapter:
- Create a curved grid that you can roll or throw objects at to see their path change. This will illustrate that “Spacetime tells matter how to move...”
- Develop a grid that can warp around objects as you move them. This should demonstrate that “...matter tells spacetime how to curve.”
- Explore more massive vs. less massive objects in the grid
If you would like to join the project, please email us! If you would like to see the code for this project, you can check out the github by clicking the button below.
Head of the outreach team
This project is split into two main groups, the outreach team and the VR production team.
- The outreach team brings existing VR demos to as many people as possible. So far the outreach team has shown Spheres and our own VR simulation to undergraduate students at UIUC, high school and middle school students through schools and through summer camps, and to the general public at conferences and other outreach events.
- The VR production team is developing our own VR experience, using Unity. Work on chapter one, which describes gravity as the curvature of the fabric of spacetime, is already underway.
Head of the VR production team
Outreach Director for ICASU
If you're interested in getting students excited about physics through virtual reality, this is a big project with lots of opportunities for hands on experience.
Volunteers can:
- code (Unity/C#)
- work directly with students
- assess effectiveness of technology in teaching
- test newly-developed VR simulations
Many of the opportunities associated with this project require no experience or prior knowledge, just curiosity! To join our team, please contact us below so we can add you to our Discord Server.
Contact us!
To contact us with any comments or questions, or to request a VR demonstration, please email phys-pointvr@illinois.edu or click the button below!
If you would like to participate in this project, you can also request to join our Discord Server via email. Please let us know what portion of the project you might be interested in.
Future Goals - Outreach
We would love to expand this program beyond schools in the immediate area. This might include driving headsets to schools in rural areas in Illinois or to neighboring states, as well as helping schools that already have headsets implement this program. Our goal is to bring new technology and active research scientists to as many students as possible.
Future Goals - VR Development
We plan to make the developed simulation and the Unity project publicly available via GitHub. Our hope is to provide materials to people we are not able to directly reach, so they can design their own educational demonstrations. In addition, this content can serve as a base for others to make their own freely available simulations in VR using Unity.