Teaching Aerospace Engineering in Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Realities

The proposed project aims to use, and evaluate the use of virtual and augmented reality applications (VR/AR) for teaching aerospace engineering to undergraduate students at MIT. To this end, we will develop and deploy a for-credit, six-unit class during IAP 2024. This class will be taught during IAP 2024 and will be open to all undergraduate students in the MIT School of Engineering. We consider this class to be an experiment that, if successful, could become a part of the regular curriculum. The class will be divided into six modules, each one centered around a topic in aerospace engineering. We will introduce students to the principles and applications of aerospace engineering through a series of challenges. For the VR/AR-enabled modality of the class, students and instructors will meet physically in classrooms and labs as well as virtually via personalized avatars.