As mentioned earlier, we developed our own VR application that simulates a laboratory assignment. The assignment is the Bunsen Burner Flame Test experiment. Please watch the short video above to see the application in action.

To explain the experiment a bit, it is a qualitative analysis technique to identify the presence of certain metal ions in a compound based on the characteristic color of the resulting flame when the compound is placed in the flame of the burner. This is a very common Chemistry lab that occurs very early on in Chemistry courses. The lab is not too complex, which was beneficial for our purposes because we created the app merely to serve as a learning experience for ourselves and as a demonstration for others using our tutorial. More information about the experiment can be found here: Flame Tests.

For our application, we used Copper (Cu) for compound 1, Calcium (Ca) for compound 2, and Potassium (K) for compound 3. In our application, the metals are labeled as this application is primarily for demonstration purposes, however if an application like this was to be used in lieu of the physical lab experiment, certain extra design decisions would need to be made. For example, the application could simply label each compound as either 1, 2 or 3, and have students fill out an answer sheet based on the characteristics identified in the flame. More information on the assets of our application is included in the Assets subsection of the Core Unity Concepts section in this tutorial.

We chose to emulate this lab assignment as it demonstrates some key benefits of VR technology in an educational environment:

• With the lab conducted in VR, there is no possibility of safety incidents involving the open flames. This specific lab is not considered that dangerous, but it still involves an open flame and burning chemicals.
• There is no need for personal protective equipment like gloves, aprons, and goggles for all students and instructors that would be required in an in-person lab, which would eliminate costs.
• There is also no need for other laboratory equipment and materials, eliminating more costs.
• This experiment could also now theoretically be conducted anywhere and any number of times, provided a user has access to the application as well as a headset and device capable of running the application.

While our application is a simulation of a simple lab assignment students would normally perform in a physical classroom, this does not mean that this is the only possible application of VR in the classroom (Adobe, Built In). Other potential applications include but are not limited to:

• Virtual field trip applications to historical sites, museums, or any other historical locations
• Applications that could help facilitate anatomy or medical training. Many medical courses use manikins to help teach students. VR technology could be used to create an immersive learning environment with more realistic simulation of human anatomy. Designing an application like this could allow for scalability, with new developers being able to constantly innovate upon the experience if provided a code base. 
• Applications to simulate real-world work environments for student in engineering or architecture fields to develop practical skills. 

With many of these more complex projects, it is recommended that a team be formed to tackle the task of development. We recommend having some designers that understand the core subject and use cases of what it is you would like to simulate, and then recruiting some developers to help with the implementation. We believe that Computer Science students of at least a junior level or higher could be sufficient to help with development. Reading and understanding documentation is the primary skillset that a developer should have to tackle projects of this scope. We suspect that most Computer Science students would not have prior experience working with 3D modeling, so research into things such as "Are there free assets that could be used in my project?", or "Is any custom 3D modeling required?" are questions that should be tackled when planning development.

If you would like to download our Unity project you can find all source code at this GitHub repository.

Before doing so, make sure your Unity Editor and personal device are set up in accordance to the steps listed in the Setup section. Further instructions on how to open our project will be listed in the Core Unity Concepts section. We also recommend understanding the details listed in this section before testing out the application for yourself.