Haptic-enabled Virtual Laboratory for Hands-on E-Learning: A Technology for and Beyond the Pandemic Era

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spurred drastic changes in the tele-education worldwide, especially Pakistan. Starting from the first phase of pandemic, Pakistani students have witnessed extensive use of tele-school and other e-learning platforms However, e-learning platforms are majorly characterized by audiovisual capability and thus, student learning is limited due to the lack of "experimentation and interaction". To cater this problem, we propose a haptics and teleoperation based inclusive teaching, comprising of a few introductory concepts of physics namely, friction, viscosity, and inertia as pilot cases. The mechanism employs single-master (teacher), multiple-slaves (students) system, each having access to affordable haptic device ‘Novint Falcon’. In teaching mode, apart from audio/visual, the demonstrator will explain concepts to students by interacting with force reflecting environments as master, whereas students feel the forces at their own haptic devices. Similarly, in other self-practice mode, students will independently perform experiments by haptic virtual interaction themselves.