Teaching computational science using vpython and virtual reality

Abstract

The Australian National University has two new complementary computational science programs, the Bachelor of Computational Science and the eScience graduate program. Students from the eScience program have developed sophisticated visualisation projects which have then been used to educate current and prospective undergraduate students in the Bachelor program. In this paper we will discuss the use of VPython combined with a 3D visualisation theatre, the Wedge, to produce hands-on computational science tutorials which we use to motivate computational science. We will briefly describe the use of VPython in our outreach tutorials, in particular a bouncing ball and gas simulation tutorial. The wedge virtual reality environment is also described as is the porting of VPython to the Wedge. Overall we provide a glimpse into our coordinated approach to using high level visualisation and virtual reality in the promotion of computational science.