ELIXIER – Experience-based learning through interactive experimentation in mixed reality environments

Seeing participation of researchers, creative industries, and teaching material providers, ELIXIER was a multidisciplinary research project that explores and validates demonstrators of a new generation of connected smart labs allowing tutor-supported end-to-end learning and working in augmented mixed-reality experimental environments.

The overall goal of the project was to design a user-friendly and effective dialog between the learners, the experiment, and the digital learning material. Pursuing a systemic approach, a major result of the project was the experimentation platform »Seamless Smart Lab (S2L)«, a web-based solution that supports a seamless continuation of individual experimental experiences made in real-world settings with interactive digital material and vice versa. By closely linking learning experiences made in the real and the virtual world, ELIXIER opened up new possibilities of close-to-practice and cumulative lifelong learning.

In the project, Fraunhofer IDMT played a major part in the conceptualization and technical implementation of the S2L-platform. In particular, Fraunhofer IDMT was responsible for the assessment component of the system, which captures and analyzes all interactions in the lab environment.

The assessment component observes the users individual strategies of problem solving and controls the tutorial assistance on the basis of context-based mechanisms. This way learning progress can immediately be fed back to the lab environment. Fraunhofer IDMT’s Hearing, Speech and Audio Technology project group adapted an innovative speech recognition and speech control technology to the specific use case and integrate it as a platform component.

• Archimedes Exhibitions GmbH
• Bauhaus Uni Weimar, Human-Computer Interaction
• Freie Universität Berlin, Didaktik der Physik
• LD Didactic GmbH
• Walk Engineering GmbH

Federal Ministry of Education and Research

2016-2018