Faculty of Engineering
Virtual Three-Dimensional & Interactive Demonstrations

Many concepts in science and engineering require the description of bodies that are partially obscured or in motion. That static material remains the primary means to describe the appearance and behaviour of obscured and moving bodies presents a major obstacle to effective teaching and learning. Fortunately, there exist a wide variety of tools today to help the educator present dynamic visualisation exercises.

Figure 1: 3-D image of an electron cloud available on the Materials Science course webpage

One useful tool is the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML), which enables one to create 3-D virtual exercises that have high levels of interactivity. These exercises can be in-corporated into existing web teaching material. This gives students the opportunity to view them repeatedly from wherever they are using a browser. Figure 1 shows a type of electron cloud, an example from the course on Materials Science. It is possible to rotate the cloud in three dimensions by simply dragging and clicking the mouse in tandem. Figure 2 shows a type of atomic arrangement. By moving the mouse over the model, the atomic arrangement will rotate. In the process of rotating, the outer layer of atoms will disappear to show the inner layer. The possibilities for creative expression are limitless.

Figure 2: 3-D image of an atomic arrangement

Faculty of Engineering
Use of IT to Facilitate Learning in Unit Operations

In the Unit Operations module, the students learn to design the common operations that constitute a chemical process. Examples of these operations are pumping, heat exchange, distillation, absorption, etc., some of which are dynamic in nature (e.g. gas-liquid mixing in distillation and absorption).

Screen capture of a video demonstrating vapour-liquid
mixing: sieve tray in a distillation column

After exploring some of the recent developments in IT resources, it was found that 3-D video clips on the above topics could convey the concepts more effectively and in less time than the 2-D (static) viewgraphs that were used in previous years. Several 2-D animation and interactive clips have also been developed to illustrate several important concepts. The interactive clips allow the students to visually see and therefore better appreciate the interaction among the operating variables of a process. The clips have been implemented on the NUS Intranet at http://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/chesf/cn2113/Nus/Html/mainpage.htm. The video, animation and interactive clips facilitate learning and in many cases give such details that are not even achievable from plant visits.

This project would not be possible without the help of Mr Lim and Mr Teo, Process Engineers at Shell and part-time Teaching Assistants (CN2113), and Mr Eugene Hiew, Media Producer at CIT.

Faculty of Medicine
Universitas 21 Deans of Medicine Meeting

Universitas 21 is a network of 18 universities in 10 countries, aiming to provide a framework for member universities to pursue programmes that would be beyond their individual capabilities. This 2-day meeting was successful in achieving its key objective of sharing among the Deans curricula development, including multimedia programmes and other means in achieving good outcomes in education and research. Other areas of discussion included research exchanges and collaborations, student and staff exchanges, benchmarking research performance and teaching programmes. Another meeting is planned for September 2001 in Vancouver to follow up on some of the key outcomes of this inaugural meeting.

Participants at the Universitas 21 Deans
of Medicine Meeting

Faculty of Science
Online MA2101 Tutorials

The normal size of a Mathematics tutorial class is 25. With such big classes, it is not easy for tutors to attend to all the students. Also, the tutors usually cannot cover everything in the tutorial within 45 minutes. To help solve this problem, the MA2101 course lecturer has used the IVLE tool ‘Online Quiz’ to create an online tutorial, on a trial basis, to assist the tutors. The questions are of the multiple-choice, true-or-false and fill-in-the-blanks formats. Students just need to type in their answers, which are automatically marked (by the computer). They can view the online hints and correct answers if they encounter difficulties dealing with certain questions. The lecturer can also get a summary of the students’ performance from the system.

An MA2101 tutorial at work

At the moment, the proving (essay)-type questions, which are not feasible for online assessment, are the type of questions the tutors will focus on in class. Nevertheless, some hints can still be put up to guide the students in dealing with such questions. As the ‘Online Quiz’ tool is originally meant for the students to take quizzes, several suggestions have been made to the IVLE team to modify it to make it more suitable for the purpose of tutorials; not to completely replace the traditional tutorial session but to supplement it.
(The online tutorial can be viewed at the MA2101 course page in the IVLE facility.)

Sample of an online tutorial available on the IVLE

School of Design & Environment
Architecture Design Education on a 12-Day Building Expedition

It was common knowledge that Singaporean engineers and doctors were the two civilian professions active in communal aid overseas but one seldom knew of architects and designers doing the same. The opportunity came in the form of the Singapore International Foundation (SIF)’s Youth Expedition Project to construct a village school canteen within 18 days in Ban Patai, Thailand. It was a chance to get a team of architecture students overseas to build a useful structure and learn from the practical experience at the same time. Sponsors included the Singapore Institute of Architects, the Lee Foundation, the Construction Industry Training Institute and the National University of Singapore.

The jubilant team with the result of their hard work

The 20 students from the Masters, Final Year, and Industrial Design programmes worked (and learnt) in two 6-day stretches, broken by days of outdoor recreation, village visits, and SIF’s cultural exchange activities. The hands-on project was completed on 17 December 2000 and proved worthwhile for the design students who require knowledge of construction and assembly consideration when planning their design solutions on the drawing board. The construction sequence for the scale of the building selected (15m x 9m single storey structure in tropical hardwood) could not be effected on lecture slots in weekly intervals. Also, a building of this complexity and scale would require approval from the Building Control Authority over a 6-month period on any Singapore site.