2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Augmented Reality (AR) has been used to enhance early-stage design and manufacturing education by enabling students to visualize, manipulate, and brainstorm components before committing to high-fidelity models. In this work, AR is integrated into the freshman course MEC 1602: Introduction to Solid Modeling and Design at the Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE) to support the low-fidelity (lo-fi) stage of product development. Through AR applications, students can project mechanical components into their environment, sketch over them, and experiment with assemblies, motions, and configurations in a tangible, interactive way. These activities are designed to extend traditional brainstorming techniques by merging digital augmentation with hands-on sketching, thus helping students generate, refine, and communicate design ideas.
The integration of AR into lo-fi prototyping emphasizes creativity, manufacturability, and feasibility assessment, encouraging students to evaluate multiple alternatives without the cost or time associated with physical models. Ongoing work explores how AR-enabled brainstorming can foster collaboration, enhance visualization skills, and build confidence in transitioning from conceptual sketches to solid models and manufacturable designs. This effort builds on the authors’ prior applications of extended reality (XR) in engineering education and expands its reach into the manufacturing-focused stages of the curriculum.
Building on prior XR studies in manufacturing, where VR and MR were applied to teach assembly tasks, the benefits of immersive technologies for education have been well demonstrated. In particular, XR-assembly training has proven effective in improving student engagement, safety awareness, and understanding of complex procedures. The ongoing AR-based approach extends these efforts into the brainstorming and early design stages, bridging conceptual design and practical assembly.