BuckeyeVR
Like few other disciplines, physics and mathematics have a reputation among students for being particularly impenetrable.
In 2014, Google revealed and disseminated the plans for “Google Cardboard,” which allows the viewer to see 3D visualizations with stereoscopic depth perception, similar to a 3D movie at a movie theater, for about $5. There is a huge potential for this device to revolutionize STEM education if VR content can be developed and classroom tested on this platform. Professor Chris Orban worked with Ohio State Marion's Savva Madar to develop smartphone-based VR visualizations for undergraduate electromagnetism classes. Dr. Jon Brown was also involved at an early stage, allowing a collaboration which produced a demo for Android phones that illustrates electric fields from different distributions of charge. The immersive nature of the VR experience creates a kind of encounter with the mathematical reality of nature that no chalkboard or computer screen can truly replicate.
Check out the BuckeyeVR website to download the apps for the IOS store and Android as well as a new "math app."
Prof. Chris Orban is a computational physicist and STEM education researcher. His work ranges from ultra-intense laser simulations and laboratory astrophysics, to smartphone based virtual reality visualizations of physical phenomena and coding integration into high school STEM. Along with Dr. Chris Porter, he co-leads the BuckeyeVR project (buckeyevr.osu.edu) which was a Fund My Idea winner at Innovate 2016.