Mining Goes Digital – Mueller et al. (Eds)
© 2019 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-33604-2
17
Virtual reality mine: A vision for digitalised mining
engineering education
R. Suppes & Y. Feldmann
Institute of Mineral Resources Engineering, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
A. Abdelrazeq & L. Daling
Cybernatics Lab IMA & IfU, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
ABSTRACT: Virtual Reality (VR) is becoming increasingly popular in domains such as
tertiary education and industrial training. For prospective mining engineers, a comprehensive
understanding of complex 3D processes is crucial but is difficult to convey in traditional
ways. The benefits of VR are the possible direct 3D immersion into locations that are remote,
too costly to visit and/or unsafe. To improve future graduate education, an informative and
interactive underground VR environment is being developed by RWTH Aachen University
and TalTech University, called the VR-Mine. It is based on the concepts of blended learning,
gamification and flipped classroom, and focusses on the topics health and safety, and principles of underground mining. Furthermore, it could help increasing the industry’s health and
safety standards with specialised training in safe environments. The vision of the project is to
create a comprehensive VR mining environment where all process-related aspects of a mine’s
life can be explored.
1 INTRODUCTION
Due to the growing world population and the associated increasing demand for mineral raw
materials, the education of mining engineers continues to have a high international relevance.
In Germany alone, over 720 million t of mineral raw materials are produced annually
(D-EITI, 2018). To date, literature from past decades (e.g. by Tamrock (1984), Goergen and
Heckschen (1987), Reuther (1989), Bauer (2002)) is primarily used as basic teaching material
in tertiary education. The advent of modern technologies such as virtual reality (VR) allows
teaching and training not only to be interactive but also to be experienced by the user. VR
is a computer-generated 3D world into which the user immerses completely with the aim of
feeling physically present (Steuer 1992). Today, VR devices have become affordable for the
broad public. For these reasons, VR is becoming increasingly popular in different domains
such as industrial training, academic research and tertiary education. Its use in education can
be regarded as a natural development of computer-aided instruction or training and can generate motivation (Freina and Ott 2015). Pantelidis (2009) concludes that VR as a new, digital
learning experience can change the way in which knowledge is taught, learned and experienced. On top of that, early studies on this topic show that a VR environment can stimulate
learning and understanding because it offers a close coupling between symbolic and experiential information (Bowman et al. 1998). In this context, it can be stated that the potential
of digital teaching and learning formats in mining engineering has hardly been exploited yet.
The challenges in the field of tertiary education in mining engineering are diverse: in
particular, the challenging transferability of theoretical knowledge into practical work
represents a problem that has not yet been sufficiently solved with conventional teaching
methods. To improve future graduate education, an informative and interactive underground
VR environment is being developed in a research project, called the VR-Mine. It is based on
© 2019 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-367-33604-2
17
Virtual reality mine: A vision for digitalised mining
engineering education
R. Suppes & Y. Feldmann
Institute of Mineral Resources Engineering, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
A. Abdelrazeq & L. Daling
Cybernatics Lab IMA & IfU, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
ABSTRACT: Virtual Reality (VR) is becoming increasingly popular in domains such as
tertiary education and industrial training. For prospective mining engineers, a comprehensive
understanding of complex 3D processes is crucial but is difficult to convey in traditional
ways. The benefits of VR are the possible direct 3D immersion into locations that are remote,
too costly to visit and/or unsafe. To improve future graduate education, an informative and
interactive underground VR environment is being developed by RWTH Aachen University
and TalTech University, called the VR-Mine. It is based on the concepts of blended learning,
gamification and flipped classroom, and focusses on the topics health and safety, and principles of underground mining. Furthermore, it could help increasing the industry’s health and
safety standards with specialised training in safe environments. The vision of the project is to
create a comprehensive VR mining environment where all process-related aspects of a mine’s
life can be explored.
1 INTRODUCTION
Due to the growing world population and the associated increasing demand for mineral raw
materials, the education of mining engineers continues to have a high international relevance.
In Germany alone, over 720 million t of mineral raw materials are produced annually
(D-EITI, 2018). To date, literature from past decades (e.g. by Tamrock (1984), Goergen and
Heckschen (1987), Reuther (1989), Bauer (2002)) is primarily used as basic teaching material
in tertiary education. The advent of modern technologies such as virtual reality (VR) allows
teaching and training not only to be interactive but also to be experienced by the user. VR
is a computer-generated 3D world into which the user immerses completely with the aim of
feeling physically present (Steuer 1992). Today, VR devices have become affordable for the
broad public. For these reasons, VR is becoming increasingly popular in different domains
such as industrial training, academic research and tertiary education. Its use in education can
be regarded as a natural development of computer-aided instruction or training and can generate motivation (Freina and Ott 2015). Pantelidis (2009) concludes that VR as a new, digital
learning experience can change the way in which knowledge is taught, learned and experienced. On top of that, early studies on this topic show that a VR environment can stimulate
learning and understanding because it offers a close coupling between symbolic and experiential information (Bowman et al. 1998). In this context, it can be stated that the potential
of digital teaching and learning formats in mining engineering has hardly been exploited yet.
The challenges in the field of tertiary education in mining engineering are diverse: in
particular, the challenging transferability of theoretical knowledge into practical work
represents a problem that has not yet been sufficiently solved with conventional teaching
methods. To improve future graduate education, an informative and interactive underground
VR environment is being developed in a research project, called the VR-Mine. It is based on