Linking Experiments and Application Practices (LEAP)

Abstract

To maintain Singapore’s competitiveness, we need to develop a skilled and nimble job-ready workforce by providing Singaporeans with opportunities to acquire foundational knowledge as well as practical skills through laboratory and classroom-based training as well as Industrial Attachment (IA) training for the relevant value-added jobs.

For engineering programs, especially, there is a particular need to bridge the competency gaps between industry skills and academic development. Some approaches that have been studied to bridge these gaps include:

1. Teaching/Learning factory with customizable training programmes and hands on experience to benefit graduates from various engineering disciplines in order to be ready for industry,
2. Work Integrated Learning (WIL)/‘Live Case Studies’ (LCSs) where the institute solicits industrial projects to be completed by students in an academic setting with active participations from industrial representative.

This project aims to provide an alternative approach by utilising technologies together with laboratory equipment to enhance the industrial skills of students. Specifically, virtual-reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and/or video-based simulation technologies are retro-fitted to an existing experimental setup to provide students with more authentic and industrial-related learning experience. This combination would enable students to realistically experience some of the industrial problems faced by the process industries, e.g., problems associated with start-up, shutdown, increase of throughput (de-bottlenecking), flooding of a packed or tray column, etc, which would otherwise be difficult to demonstrate and conduct in a traditional experiment setup. Furthermore, authentic troubleshooting exercises can be included in the laboratory session to train students on the different mitigation strategies for different types of problems