ANGOLA WLKI- Trine University mechanical engineering students will soon have a new tool to help them prepare for industry-style technical presentations.
The university has received an $8,980 grant from the Engineering Information Foundation for a project titled "Engineering Communication Lab: Enhancing Capstone Design Presentations with Virtual Reality."
The yearlong project will be led by Gurudutt Chandrashekar, associate professor in Trine's Wade Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. It will be incorporated into the university's Mechanical Engineering Capstone Design course beginning this fall.
Students will use VirtualSpeech, a virtual reality platform that provides automated feedback while users practice presentations. The technology will be used before major design milestones, including requirements reviews, concept reviews, critical design reviews and final project presentations.
The platform will evaluate skills such as presentation clarity, pacing, confidence, audience engagement, delivery consistency and the use of filler words. Faculty members will continue evaluating the technical content and quality of each student presentation.
Chandrashekar says the project is intended to give students repeated practice presenting complex engineering concepts while allowing them to improve without adding to faculty workload.
The Engineering Information Foundation supports initiatives aimed at improving communication skills and increasing opportunities for women in engineering, according to a Trine University news release.