Digital game-based examination for sensor placement in context of an Industry 4.0 lecture using the Unity 3D engine - a case study

Due to the many advantages that digital teaching and testing methods have over traditional ones, they are increasingly finding their way into everyday educational practice. The current events of the COVID-19 pandemic have given these approaches an additional boost. In this paper, a first version of digital game-based examination for sensor placement is presented, which can supplement parts of a classical exam for an Industry 4.0 lecture designed for postgraduate engineering students. For the development of the environment the Unity 3D Engine as well as freely available models and plugins for Unity are leveraged. By doing so, an immersive virtual scenario is created in which complex problems can be depicted and solved by the student. To ensure the suitability of this exam type and the coverage of the desired learning objectives, an evaluation of the game-based examination environment will subsequently be conducted and the results are discussed. (C) 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.