A research team based in Purdue Polytechnic’s School of Engineering Technology has been honored with multiple prestigious awards at the 2024 American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Annual Conference. This team included assistant professor Farid Breidi and Israa Azzam, a PhD student under his supervision, plus José Garcia-Bravo and Paul Asunda (faculty in the engineering technology and technology, leadership and innovation departments respectively).
These awards were the result of research funded by a National Science Foundation (NSF) award which commenced in 2022 and lists Breidi as principal investigator and Asunda as co-investigator.
The original research brief focuses on methods to increase the spatial-visual awareness skills of manufacturing students. The abstract states that, by using tools such as VR headsets, “[Mixed-reality] modules will be incorporated into undergraduate fluid power courses to develop students' cognitive spatial thinking and thus reinforce their problem-solving skills.”
Several years later, this effort has expanded into a wider range of projects, which were recognized as the best research papers in several divisions of ASEE’s award categories. Altogether, the team won the following awards:
- Best Paper Award, ASEE Manufacturing Division: "Teaching Manufacturing Assembly Processes Using Immersive Mixed Reality" Authors: Israa Azzam, Farid Breidi, Faisal Aqlan (University of Louisville)
- Best Paper Award, ASEE Industrial Engineering Division: "Mixed Reality as a Teaching Tool for Improving Spatial Visualization in Engineering Students" Authors: Israa Azzam, Farid Breidi, Faisal Aqlan, José Garcia, and Paul Asunda
- Outstanding Paper Award, 2024 New Industrial Engineering Educator: "Mixed Reality as a Teaching Tool for Improving Spatial Visualization in Engineering Students" Presented to: Farid Breidi
In Addition, Breidi was also elected as the "Inter-Divisional Town Hall Representative" for the ASEE Manufacturing Division for 2024-2025.
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