IDMET Educational Goals
- To accelerate our students’ readiness in digital innovation practice using the same tools that are used in industry
- To incorporate the use of digital tools across the biomedical engineering curriculum by developing educational modules and class projects that are incorporated in courses from the introductory to graduate level.
- To provide opportunities for working engineers to learn or update digital skills consistent with the current demand of the industry.
To date, IDMET has developed several educational modules, classroom applications, and student projects that have already been successfully incorporated in five biomedical engineering courses ranging from introductory to graduate level, with more being developed.
All biomedical engineering faculty and registered students hold licenses to access the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform. To date, 246 Illinois Tech faculty and students have been onboarded and are users of the software. Students keep access to the licenses for their entire time at Illinois Tech to support their coursework, research, and independent projects.
The learning of new digital practices requires an appropriate introduction to their use. At IDMET we develop onboarding modules and learning experiences to introduce new users to the digital tools that the 3DEXPERIENCE platform offers to better prepare the workforce of the future.
IDMET works closely with Dassault Systèmes’s educational and technical support teams in the development of new theme-specific educational modules for our programs while leveraging an already extensive library of training materials developed by Dassault Systèmes.
Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE Academia offers a series of short videos as training material to support the process for onboarding new users. These are comprised of nine chapters covering a variety of topics, and a video summarizing the 3DEXPERIENCE training chapters is available.
Course Modules, Classroom Applications, and Student Projects
Introduction to the Profession—Contact Lens Case (BME 100)
Professor: Promila Dhar
Students are introduced to 3D modeling and fabrication in this module. Each student designs a contact lens case based on given specifications. Students have access to three mini-modules that introduce and demonstrate basic 3D modeling concepts. Students export their digital design files and fabricate their contact lens case using a 3D printer.
Biomedical Engineering Application of MATLAB—Contact Lens (BME 200)
Professor: Bonnie Haferkamp
This module focuses on using 3DEXPERIENCE to solve real-world problems. Students are given a set of parameters to design, fabricate, and test a contact lens. Students use digital tools to design the lens and simulate its light refraction. Students export the digital files of their lens to be laser cut and then test its index of refraction using an experimental setup, comparing this measured value with a simulated result.
Bio-Fluid Mechanics and Computational Fluid Dynamics: Flow Characterization in Conduits with Partial Lumen Obstruction or Porous Walls (BME 301)
Professor: Abhinav Bhushan
This module demonstrates basic fluid dynamic simulation tools for the design and characterization of engineering systems with the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. Students create a simulation of flow over different blockages in a pipe and across a porous wall. This learning experience has applications in the design of microfluidics systems, filtration systems, and other experimental devices.
Design Concepts in Biomedical Engineering—Design and Project Management (BME 419/420)
Professor: Jennifer Kang-Mieler
In this course, students work in groups to develop engineering projects over the course of the school year. They are given access to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform as a suite of tools to develop models, run simulations, and manage their projects. Students and instructors use the 3DEXPERIENCE platform to exchange information in real time, create their design and solutions in a collaborative space, and keep track of their progress in an electronic notebook. A mini-module, developed by IDMET, is introduced in this class to provide students with basic 3D modeling concepts and the use of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform tools. Examples of biomedical engineering projects for which the student teams applied these advanced digital tools include the design and simulation of forceps, the design of a smart drug delivery system, and the simulation of a sub-diffuse optical topography system.
Cell Biomechanics: Principles and Biological Processes—“COVID-19 Virus Particle Adhesion” (BME 523)
Professor: John Georgiadis
Student teams worked on cell biomechanics projects involving modeling and simulation. One project modeled the dynamics of particle adhesion to surfaces using 3DEXPERIENCE. Specifically, students developed a simulation of the adhesion of a single COVID-19 virus particle to the epithelial surface of human lung tissue. This model explores the kinetics of virus adhesion to the surface, as a function of the virus’s shape and “stickiness”, as well as epithelial surface properties which may aid in the understanding of how COVID-19 infection begins through the respiratory tract. This project explored the dynamics of physical interactions between viruses and other particles, both biological and non-biological, with human tissue.
Onboarding Modules
Mini-Modules
Several mini-modules have been created to introduce students to 3DEXPERIENCE. These short, educational projects are designed to be simple, clear, and concise. Each mini-module includes a video presentation and student participation, and usually ends with the creation of an object.
General Introduction
A general module has been created for introducing the 3DEXPERIENCE platform to biomedical students: “Using the 3DDEXPERIENCE Platform”
Description: This is a general introduction of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform used in BME courses. It describes the platform, its applications, and gives examples of several research projects at Illinois Tech that have used the 3DEXPERIENCE platform.
