In this project, a tool is developed to improve long-distance collaboration on the production of composites for the aerospace industry. In a literature review, four main things were explored. The concept of Mental Models and Common Ground, the concept of bandwidth, the current state of VR and VR collaboration and the composites of ATG. This formed the theoretical basis for the project.
It became clear that there were two knowledge gaps. The first one being the composite production process and the second being what communication tools were currently used and why.
To gain insight into the production process, an immersion exercise was done in which the designer did the actual production process. This was then made it into a timeline and discussed with the composite team to ensure it was accurate. The main conclusion was to focus on the alignment process.
Ten interviews were done to determine the use of each communication tool. The results of these interviews were then clustered and made into charts and a write-up. This indicated that a traceable and high bandwidth tool did not exist yet which presents an opportunity for VR.
For the conceptualisation, a set of requirements were created based on the previous research. These requirements helped to create a concept direction. The concept direction is a Virtual reality tool that does two main things. First, it records sketches, objects and the engineers’ position and voice in 3D over time to capture Mental Models. Secondly, by organising those Mental Models in a clear project structure that makes the Mental Models traceable and findable in a persistent project.
An almost fully featured prototype of the concept was build using a method called RITE (Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation). This meant multiple iterations of the prototype were made and evaluated. The QUESI questionnaire was used to evaluate the performance of each iteration.
A between-group study was done to evaluate the prototype on its ability to transfer Mental Models. Participants were shown either a video or a written description of a process, which they were then asked to answer questions about, resulting in an individual score. Furthermore, they were asked about their perceived understanding of the domain before and after the immersion activity, as well as their opinion on the experience. A video of the prototype was used so the study could be done online. This was necessary to recruit participants.
With 24 participants the results came back mostly insignificant but the video of VR did perform better on clarity and experience. It performed slightly higher but not significantly so on the score and the perceived understanding. That is still a promising result as preparation time was lower and the VR tool is traceable.