Immersive Virtual Reality Applications for Designing Engineering Education Practice Simulation

Education in the future is more likely to be conducted using distance learning and learners can study by themselves at their convenience. In addition, the COVID-19 outbreak situation has made many educational institutions unable to organize teaching in their actual locations. This change in teaching and learning style creates barriers to learning. Then, the development of educational technology is necessary to make teaching and learning possible effective and achieve results comparable to traditional education. Therefore, this research has developed an online 3D virtual reality-based engineering practice simulator for Water Resources Engineering. Program design consists of 4 parts: 1) preparing the shape of equipment and machinery models, 2) machine simulation design, 3) virtual reality program design, and 4) online connected work. The program developed allows students to conduct operational experiments by themselves. Users can interact with the simulator in a realistic way. Learners and teachers can talk to each other and use the simulators together online. Teacher can explain how to use the equipment and organize teaching together as if they were together in a real simulation laboratory using virtual world technology. This makes it possible to set goals in creating an online classroom for students to participate in the classroom just like a real classroom, which is in line with the digital age where communication, connectivity and access are truly borderless.