Impacts of Human Robot Proxemics on Human Concentration-Training Games with Humanoid Robots.

The use of humanoid robots within a therapeutic role, that is, helping individuals with social disorders, is an emerging field, but it remains unexplored in terms of concentration training. To seamlessly integrate humanoid robots into concentration games, an investigation into the impacts of human robot interactive proxemics on concentration-training games is particularly important. In the case of an epidemic diffusion especially-for example, during the COVID-19 pandemic-HRI games may help in the therapeutic phase, significantly reducing the risk of contagion. In this paper, concentration games were designed by action imitation involving 120 participants to verify the hypothesis. Action-imitation accuracy, the assessment of emotional expression, and a questionnaire were compared with analysis of variance (ANOVA). Experimental results showed that a 2 m distance and left-front orientation for a human and a robot are optimal for human robot interactive concentration training. In addition, females worked better than males did in HRI imitation games. This work supports some valuable suggestions for the development of HRI concentration-training technology, involving the designs of friendlier and more useful robots, and HRI game scenarios.

Virtual Laboratory: A Boon to the Mechanical Engineering Education During Covid-19 Pandemic

The engineering students understand the engineering concepts effectively when they conduct the experiments in the laboratory. Hence, laboratory is as important as theory;however, the ill-equipped laboratory facilities affect the students? learnability. The virtual laboratories may help the students overcome the problems faced by them in the conventional laboratory. In India, educational activities during the middle of the semester were affected due to lockdown related to COVID-19. However, the theory classes were conducted online, and educational institutions are finding it difficult to complete the laboratory experiments due to closure of colleges for the students due to COVID-19 pandemic. Hence, we have conducted a faculty development programme for the engineering college faculty members on mechanical engineering virtual laboratories. Similarly, we have trained the mechanical engineering students on fluid mechanics virtual laboratory. We have taken feedback from the participants of these virtual laboratory training programme and analysed it. From the analysis we have observed that more than 90 per cent of the participants were happy about the virtual laboratory and they expressed that their learning process improved with virtual laboratory experiments. Also, they felt that the virtual laboratories can be used till the COVID-19 pandemic issues are solved. Since the vaccine for COVID-19 is not available yet, the virtual laboratories will help the mechanical engineering students to conduct the laboratory experiments for the academic year 2020?2021.