Augmented reality direct current glow discharge experimentation

Abstract

The glowing discharges of plasma obtained by introducing direct current high voltages between two electrodes in a chamber that contains a low pressure gas produces a spectacular effect that makes it attractive to be used as a laboratory experiment for students. Setting up this experiment is however costly and has crucial safety issues to be addressed. An augmented reality approach here allows students to conduct such an experiment effectively. It was designed to guide students on how to conduct the experiment safely and properly, as well as to allow them to note the voltage breakdown values according to Paschen’s rule. The tool has the strong advantage of allowing students to conduct experimentation without removing any of the real-life and tactile features that help to constitute cognition events in the natural world. It also yielded positive responses when tested on 39 high school students as part of an outreach program for science and technology.

Augmented reality technology in teaching about physics: a systematic review of opportunities and challenges

“…Furthermore, teachers from the study by Arici et al [36] and students from the study by Liu et al [75] and Önal and Önal [85], pointed out that AR technology prevents dangerous situations that could arise in a wide range of experiments conducted in real classroom environments. Finally, Yau et al concluded that health risks from high voltage current flowing through the body can be avoided if AR technology is used to create an experiment that involves discharges of plasma [121]. Similar conclusions can be drawn for experiments involving electrical circuits that operate at high voltages.…”

“…Some studies have reported students' prolonged motivation for learning based on their prior AR learning experience [122]. Therefore, it is not surprising that students and teachers in some studies expressed their positive attitudes towards AR, their willingness to continue using AR in the future and recommending it to others [36,48,85,106,119,121]. Alvarez-Marin et al found that students were willing to use AR apps if they found them useful, not just easy to use [34].…”

“…In another study, Cai et al [41] pointed out that AR tools can substitute expensive and complex devices. For example, the plasma discharges experiment can be performed at a fraction of the cost of a real experiment when using the AR application (90 versus 20 000 AUD) [121].…”

“…For example, some researchers reported difficulties due to camera freezing and increased energy consumption [36,69]. Other researchers reported that their application was unable to register all image markers simultaneously, due to the slow processing speed of the used smartphones or tablet devices [121]. It has also been reported that marker-based AR can be affected by various features of light exposure which may lead to recognition error [8,36,41,45,117].…”

Development of augmented reality systems displaying three-dimensional dynamic motion in real time

“…The technology of augmented reality (AR) has grown exponentially in the past decade [1] and is now being applied widely in the field of education as well [2]. Since AR can display virtual objects in the real world, researchers have developed systems that visualize invisible phenomena in the field of physics [3][4][5][6][7].…”