hapTEL Virtual Dental Lab celebration
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More than 50 educators, researchers, students and policy makers gathered on 20 September at the Dental Institute to celebrate the Phase I achievements of the hapTEL project.The event launched the ‘curriculum beta version’ of the project’s haptic mouth, which allows dental students to practise drilling teeth in a 3-D touch-sensitive simulation rather than on expensive plastic teeth, thus saving money and enhancing the students’ learning.
The £1.5m ESRC/EPSRC funded project has an interdisciplinary team of 20 researchers, led by Professor Margaret Cox at King’s in partnership with colleagues at the University of Reading and Birmingham City University. The team designed not only the technology, but also the curriculum to go with it.
The Principal, Professor Rick Trainor opened the proceedings by pointing out that the evening’s programme reflected the rich interdisciplinary and multi-institutional flavour of the project.
Professor Nairn Wilson, Dean of the Dental Institute, spoke of the hapTEL’s ‘significant advancement of the possibilities in relation to simulation in dental education’, which has sparked commercial interest that could well influence the dental profession. Next a series of project staff discussed the project’s various pedagogical, dental and technical impacts.
The Principal and Project Director Professor Margaret Cox, then, officially opened the laboratory, followed by a demonstration of the hardware and software in action from the evening’s MC and Project Manager Dr Jonathan San Diego, along with senior researcher Dr Alistair Barrow and PhD student Mr Brian Tse.
Project Manager Dr Jonathan San Diego commented: 'The virtual dental training simulator was designed to meet the requirements of clinicians, tutors and students. We adopted the terminology that is used in practice when operating with human patients in order to support a smooth transfer from virtual to real world scenarios.
'The students perform virtual operations on an accurate three-dimensional reconstruction of the anatomy of teeth and jaw. The students are able to feel that they are cutting different tooth tissues as a result of the tactile feedback provided through a real dental drill attached to a modified gaming device.'
For more information about the projecct visit the HapTEL website.
Posted on 6 October 2010
The Principal, Professor Rick Trainor opened the proceedings by pointing out that the evening’s programme reflected the rich interdisciplinary and multi-institutional flavour of the project.
Professor Nairn Wilson, Dean of the Dental Institute, spoke of the hapTEL’s ‘significant advancement of the possibilities in relation to simulation in dental education’, which has sparked commercial interest that could well influence the dental profession. Next a series of project staff discussed the project’s various pedagogical, dental and technical impacts.
The Principal and Project Director Professor Margaret Cox, then, officially opened the laboratory, followed by a demonstration of the hardware and software in action from the evening’s MC and Project Manager Dr Jonathan San Diego, along with senior researcher Dr Alistair Barrow and PhD student Mr Brian Tse.
Project Manager Dr Jonathan San Diego commented: 'The virtual dental training simulator was designed to meet the requirements of clinicians, tutors and students. We adopted the terminology that is used in practice when operating with human patients in order to support a smooth transfer from virtual to real world scenarios.
'The students perform virtual operations on an accurate three-dimensional reconstruction of the anatomy of teeth and jaw. The students are able to feel that they are cutting different tooth tissues as a result of the tactile feedback provided through a real dental drill attached to a modified gaming device.'
For more information about the projecct visit the HapTEL website.
Posted on 6 October 2010