Virtual Experiences LabUniversity of Georgia
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Mixed Reality Robot Programming

Letting every engineering student program an industrial-scale robot arm, using augmented reality to bridge virtual and physical robots.

A UR10 collaborative robot arm in the lab holding a virtual car body, seen through a mixed reality headset.

Robots matter across defense, manufacturing, medicine and exploration, but most students first meet them as small classroom models that hide the scale, abilities and dangers of the real thing. Industrial robots, meanwhile, are expensive and hard to share.

This project uses augmented and mixed reality to give engineering students hands-on time with a collaborative UR10 arm: programming it, previewing motions on virtual parts, and comparing virtual and physical robots. Our pilot study with new engineering students, published in the Computers in Education Journal (2025), examined how this introduction affects motivation and learning.

A virtual car body held by the robot arm, with programming panels floating beside it.
The physical UR10 robot arm on a workbench.

Publications

In the news

Andrew Rukangu wins ASEE 2023 paper award

Andrew Rukangu's paper on virtual reality for robot control and programming in undergraduate engineering courses won a Computers in Education Division paper award at ASEE 2023.