Covid19 and the virus that caused it has been a horror these years. It spreads like it has never known how to stop. Education as we see it experiencing a gigantic change in this era, where no one would feel safe sitting next to each other. Interaction is also limited to online meetings or cloud workspace where no real physical interaction is possible. Indonesia is no different, in fact we are ranked 13 with more than 4 million cases that lead to face-to-face bans at schools, universities, and polytechnics. The ban has introduced a series of difficulties for educators, instructors, students, and learners throughout the country and worldwide. If we take a closer look on how education, specifically vocational is actually built for, which is to gain experience and even more experience, limited interaction is definitely bad news. Online class is basically interaction with your computer, laptop, or smartphone which does not really give you a real feel on something that you learn.
Take an example when you try to learn how to drive a 6-gear front wheel drive car, but you are not allowed to touch the car. You are only given pictures, animation, and a series of well-developed reading materials about driving a car as well as some links of video of someone driving a car that might be different from the one you are trying to drive. Then you start your learning experience while scanning through your mind. Imagining how to change the gear, oh wait, kick the gear clutch pedal first, then change the gear, release the coupling and stabilize the accelerator pedal. Alright, make sure you do not forget to release the coupling pedal really slowly just to make sure you don’t make the car jump or maybe make the engine stall and stop it. Oh well, that is too much isn’t it? In conclusion, just like how you feel when reading the imagination above, that really won’t bring you anywhere near the real driving skills.
Now imagine a different setup. The car is away, far from you. But you are given a set of accelerator pedals, a brake pedal, a steering wheel, a gear shift stick, a 40-inch monitor, and a helmet (I will tell you what the helmet is for later). You place those peripherals near you in a sitting position. Just like a real car. Wear the helmet on your head, and then connect them to your Wi-Fi. The setup on your side is complete. The car on the other hand, that is far away from you is equipped with 1080 HD camera in the driver seat that is mounted on an accurate stepper motor. A multipurpose controller connected to electric power steering, pistons to push the accelerator pedal, the brake and the gear clutch, and the stepper motor camera. Well now you have a real car that is remote controlled far away from your place. Plus, if you move your helmet along with your head. The IMU sensor will send the position of your head to the controller inside the car (which is far away from you) to move the 1080 HD camera in the same position of the helmet. Hence, it will give you a real experience as if you are the one driving the car. How would you feel right now? A feeling of semi realistic experience, right?
The illustration on learning how to drive a car in a distance mode above is achievable nowadays using IoT and IP camera technology. However, the one that I will share with you right now is a tiny bit of a different version. Politeknik Kota Malang in Indonesia has quite a large portion of practical work during the study. About 80% of the time used for practical work in order to give the students as much experience as they can get. A total of 55 hours on average for the whole semester for every subject is used for that purpose. Therefore it pushes us to develop a helmet that could bring a semi realistic experience as much as possible even when they are at home. The helmet is called Set-FPV, which stands for Smart Helmet First Person View. The helmet is equipped with IP cam HD 1080 with ability to be controlled in 360 degree and a Bluetooth headset. The setup is situated in Electropneumatic laboratory of Politeknik Kota Malang in Malang, Jawa Timur Indonesia. The setup included 8 IoT smart switches that enable the equipment to be controlled remotely. Those are 1) series of SPDT switches that are used for constructing an electropneumatic circuit 2) an air compressor for energy supply 3) Laboratory air conditioner (AC) 4) Lab lightings and 5) some indicator LED in lab equipment. All of them are controlled via an app that is self-developed by our team. The lab is normally used for practical work with about 24 students each class, and about 5 hours a week. This year (2021) is the first year where we try the new setup using IoT and smart helmet. Feel free to take a closer look on how the practical work is done using this setup here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81tO-IfmafA.
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To sum all up, IoT technology has now become a rising star in an era of vocational distance learning. The era where vocational education is for all, and for anyone, anywhere. The development of such a new method in learning together with LMS, which already does a great service for theoretical class, has to be added with a different approach for the practical works such as engineering, medical, chefs class, and other similar classes that require a more real experience approach.
by Aditya Kurniawan, PGDip.Eng.,MOS
Assistant.Prof. on Mechatronics Engineering at Politeknik Kota Malang