 A very good evening to one and all. Myself Pranjil Bhon and I along with my team will be presenting the project virtual chemistry lab. In the last two days we all have seen amazing ideas, brilliant concepts and various forms of learning aids which came up because of the summer internship program. Our project is yet another feather in the cap. The virtual chemistry project, virtual chemistry lab is an Akshaksha initiative under the MHRD project. It was initiated two years ago under the able guidance of Professor D.B. Fatak, Mr. Vinash Avte and Mr. Mayank Palival. It is because of these people that the project has been successfully finished. Let us get a quick introduction to the team VCL. We have Ajay Anand, Amit Bhatti, Bhavya Devedi, Ishti Gupta, Sanket Mehta, Shiladitya Mandal, Sri Vidya Venugopalayan and Myself Pranjil Bhon. The entire project may be broadly classified into two aspects. The first is the interactive learning objects in which we created simulations of chemistry chapters in action script. The second part of the project is the virtual chemistry lab in which we created a virtual chemistry lab and we brought it to the virtual environment. Focusing on the first part of the project, the main aim was to create interactive learning objects of certain difficult to crack chapters of chemistry and to present it to the students so that they can learn in efficient and better way. In total we have completed 69 of such interactive modules. Here we have demonstration of two of them. See here on the display we have the drawback of Rutherford model of Atom. When a student reads this chapter, this topic, in the test books he finds it very difficult to correlate. It is pretty much difficult for him to understand. This is because it is practically not possible for him to visualize the movement of such microscopic, ultra microscopic particles and here they can clearly see the electron falling in the helical path and then falling into the nucleus. This was our aim. We have yet another demonstration to show the electronic configuration of atoms. The sliders of the atomic number can be easily varied and thus the electrons in separate rings can be definitely seen. This way of approach is so much easier for the student to understand. The major aim of the entire project was to break the notion of mugging up chemistry and to make it fun for the student to learn. Now with this I would like to hand over to Ishti Gupta so that she could tell you more about the virtual chemistry lab. A very good evening to one and all. I am here to present to you the broader aspect of our project, the virtual chemistry lab. Before we begin I would like to mention that our project is in continuation with the work of two previous teams. These teams primarily were Dhaval, Naveen, Piyush, Shreya, Shruti, Anirvan, Aviral, Harsh, Kaushik, Maleshwari, Mayur, Pankaj and Vikram Varma. These teams basically provided us with a virtual chemistry lab in Java that would run on desktop. Akash however runs on Android. Now our major aim was to port this virtual chemistry lab to Android. So the previous version of the virtual chemistry lab had a number of operational issues and also the graphics needed a lot of improvement. So our second main thing was that we had to enhance the whole virtual chemistry lab. For this purpose to fulfill these objectives we chose LibGDX. LibGDX is a library for game development. Why we chose LibGDX was because LibGDX firstly is in Java and the previous virtual chemistry lab was also in Java. Secondly, LibGDX provides us the facility that we write the code once and we can use it on a number of platforms like Android, HTML, iOS and also desktop by changing just one patch or five. So that's why LibGDX, moving to the scope of our project. No government school as we all know has a chemistry lab. Also it is not possible that we have a chemistry lab in every school because financially chemistry labs need a lot of investment. That's what we thought was that we will provide them with a virtual chemistry lab that they can work on as close to the real lab as possible. I'd like to show you the basic look and feel of our lab. This is our lab, this is the home screen. We have three modes, the perform mode, the setup mode and the play save demos mode. For the easy understanding of the student, we have a help mode. In the help mode, the student can clearly understand what has to be done in each of the modes. To explain to you further, I would like to call upon Bhavya. Good evening yet again. I'm here to help you dig deeper into the three modules that we have in our project. I'll start with the setup experiment module. The setup experiment module basically helps you to set up an experiment like it is in a chemistry lab. First you need to set up an experiment and then you move on to performing it. Similarly is here. You can see there's a table, left hand side of the table is the store wherein you get all the reagents and the equipment and the right hand side is actually the workbench which has to be set up. The chemical reagents that you see on the cupboard are actually read through a dynamic XML file and you can add a new reagent onto the cupboard. You'll have to input properties of the reagent like its name, the formula, its pH, etc. Now when you add a new chemical to the cupboard, it is actually written into an XML file of the chemicals using an XML writer. There you have the new chemical successfully added. Now when you need to add equipment to the workbench, what do you do is that you create a copy of the equipment in the store. You cannot use them as such. When you make a copy, you actually input the volume of the equipment that you're using. Like he's put on a beaker, now he's adding a flask with a capacity of 500 ml and he puts it onto the cupboard. There is a dustbin, you can see there the right bottom most corner. The dustbin is basically to aid disposal of any equipment which has been added by mistake and this is necessary because you cannot add a new equipment unless you have placed the previous one on the workbench. We'll now set up an experiment. He's bought the chemical bottle and a beaker and he overlapped the two to pour chemical into the beaker. Now he's adding the volume which is required and there we place it on the workbench. Now we add the next chemical, copper sulphate, he just added it. Again he overlapped, pour it, enter the volume and he'll add it to the workbench. So this is how you can set up an experiment. There can be multiple equipments you can add. Now we'll proceed on to the, yes, this setup is saved again in the XML file because there is a need of using the setup next time you perform an experiment. So now we move on to the next module that is a perform experiment module. Now the perform experiment module is basically to perform an experiment and the activities you can perform while performing an experiment. A standard user can use is moving an equipment onto the workbench and pouring and washing, heating. So this is just a demonstration. We have again the workbench. The equipments and the chemicals have been added by reading an XML file. This is the beaker and the burette for the purpose of titrations. This is one new feature we've added into the project. Heating is done by overlapping an equipment with the burner. You can specify the time of heating. Now there's one more functionality that we have. It is of the pH meter. The pH meter was basically again added for the purpose of titration experiments because you need to detect the pH of solutions while titrations. If you hover the pH meter over chemical, it displays the pH of that solution. This is washing and equipment. You overlap it with the washed basin and the equipment is washed. We move on to the next module now. You can save the experiment you've performed again for the purpose of learning and evaluating yourself from the experiment. This is pouring action. You overlap the two beakers and you're saving it into an XML file so that you can use it for the demonstration purpose. Now we move on to the final module of the virtual chemistry lab, which is the play-saved demos. Now this module was integrated to help the user look into some demonstration files or the previously saved XMLs. The demonstration files are basically for the purpose of making the user learn the use of standard equipment because the aim of virtual chemistry lab it is restricted to high school level. So we added demonstration files for the equipment and we added demonstration files for the two basic types of experiments that one can perform which are on solutions and titrations. Moving on, I'd like to tell you that before we began with the project, we actually looked for some other simulators of the chemistry lab and we found out two major simulators. One was VertLab and other was Chem Collective. I'll just quickly tell you what's the difference between these and the virtual chemistry lab. The virtual chemistry lab wins hands down on its user interface. It's very simple to use and it's very attractive. Both these do have a very nice user interface, but it is very complex. The other one limitation I should cite of the virtual chemistry lab is that we are still limited with the knowledge of chemicals. Though we have a chemical class and the knowledge can be extended, but as of now it is very limited. Moving on, I'd just like to state a few points why one should go for the virtual chemistry lab and not for any other simulator. The first point being, like I said, the user interface is very attractive and for a better experience of the real chemistry lab, everything that we've made is generic. Nothing is specific to an experiment. The chemicals, the equipments can be used for any experiment, so that is how it allows the user to play with the standard equipments and reagents that are there in the chemistry lab. Next is virtual chemistry lab being a part of the AikShikshap project was aimed, the aim of building the virtual chemistry lab was that imparting free knowledge to everybody. And so each resource of the virtual chemistry lab is absolutely free, unlike the other simulators. And lastly, fulfilling the major objective that we had is the cross-platform nature of virtual chemistry lab, why you should go for it. It works on desktop, Linux, and Windows, as well as on Android. To continue with the presentation, I'd like to call upon Shiladitya. So I'll be continuing with the enhanced features of this VCL. As you know, this project has been done for the last two years as well. The first aim of enhancing was the graphics. So initially, we basically enhanced the equipment graphics, as you've seen in the demo. The next was, so the first improvement that we concentrated on was basically improving the graphics of all the equipments and improving the actions on these equipments, especially fill, port, rotate, or titrate, as you've seen in the demo experiment. And the next part was the user interfaces. All the dialogues have been improved. They have been made transparent, as you've seen the color chooser initially. The color chooser used to be just three text boxes for the red, green, blue values. But right now, we have sliders for implementing that, which makes it more user interactive. And we'll go to the next slide. As for challenges faced, when we got the project first, we didn't know what development platform to choose. The existing project was made on Java Swing. But what we needed was a cross-platform version, especially which can work on Android platforms. So when we came across LibGDX, it's a recent library with very basic documentation. So the first challenge was to understand the source code and how to use them to build new modules. Every feature that you see over here, the dialog boxes, the file choosers, everything has been coded by us. There's no inbuilt functions for them. So that was the first challenge, how to build basic modules using LibGDX. And next was the existing structure of all the objects was a more of a hard-coded sort of structure with hard-coded x and y values. But we had to change them to accommodate the relative positions of objects since we had to concentrate for different screen sizes, be it mobile devices or desktop devices. So we had to make sure that all the data object description had to be relative to the screen. And all the x, y values of the x, y positions of each of the equipments were generated dynamically based on these relative positions. And the next challenge that we faced was to implement the various actions on these equipments. As you've seen, it's a very high graphic experience. And the next challenge that we faced was to link the various assets. Now, as I've told you, it's a cross-platform development. So we have around four or five project folders for each platform. One was the basic LibGDX code folder, which contains all the source code of the algorithms. One was for Android, one was for HTML, one was for iOS. So linking the assets between all these folders since the file management in all these platforms are different, that was a huge task. Next, please. For limitations, right now, the major limitation in our project is the lack of chemical knowledge. We have a chemical class which encapsulates all chemical properties, but it's a very basic model with only color properties or pH or molarity and molecular weight. We do not have any accommodation to provide complex experiments, complex equations and all. Next, as I told you, we have a very basic level of experiments like solutions and titrations. As for future scope, we have an evaluation module can be implemented since we already have the play module. Next is chemical knowledge can be increased since we have a base class for the chemical and more knowledge can be put into the structure. And since we already have improved the graphics, we can improve it more by showing features like effervescence or heating. So, looking back at the past six weeks of our project, looking back at the past six weeks of our project, we were really fortunate to have worked on LibGDX. As I told you, it was a very basic framework. It had a lot of, it's really powerful, but it did not have any in-built modules. We had to build every nook and corner of all the screens that you see is our own work. Every dialogue, everything is our own work. And next, we were like eight members in a team, so previously we haven't worked in such a big team and synchronizing and integrating the work of all the people was a major task. Now that Fatih sir has joined us again, I would like to show him a demonstration of how we have set up the actual lab. So we have this virtual chemistry lab in which we have three modes, setup, perform and play. So in setup we can actually set up the environment like we do in the real lab. In performer we perform the experiment which are saved in the XML format. In play demos we have predefined sets or the student can create his own demonstration. So the teacher might provide XML files in which the experiment has to be exactly performed and the student can play it. In the setup mode, we have a store rack and we have a shelf for the student. They can add new chemicals or they can use the previously defined ones. But adding the new chemicals, the student has to click on the new chemical button and we have to enter details of the new chemical. The new option that we entered from the previous version was that we have entered as user interactive choose color option with sliders. Last time we had to use the RGB values which was very cumbersome for the teacher or the student to remember. Also we have included features like pH, molarity and molecular weight. The new chemical added is in XML format. The file is saved in XML format which was not previously used. Also we can have various kinds of beakers and flask. The volume is asked every time we click it and a new chemical is added. For pouring, this is the disposal. We have a dustbin option for disposal of any kind of equipment. We can dispose beakers and flask. For pouring a new chemical or previously defined chemical into a beaker, we just have to overlap the chemical bottle over the empty beaker. They ask us for the option, how much do we want to fill? We enter the volume and we fill it. Once the setup is completely created, we can save the XML file and they can be reviewed later either by the teacher for centralized evaluation for the future difference or by the student themselves. The perform mode is basically to perform an experiment of the setup that is previously created. Suppose we have a previously created XML file, we open it and then we perform the experiment over it. We can use the burets for filling. We have the options to empty the beakers and chemicals in the wash basin. We also have burners. So activities like titration can be easily performed because such laboratories are not available in the government school very readily and government does not have finances to aid such labs. So we are providing students with the virtual chemistry lab on their fingertips. The intensity of the heating can again be changed by the user himself. We have to click it to change the intensity of heating. Likewise, we can heat it down also. The pH meter is a new feature that we added from the previous chemistry lab. We have to hover the pH meter over the chemical and it could read the pH value of the chemical. Also, the student would not know how many, how does he have to operate the lab. So we have provided him with a help button on the main screen itself so they can know how to use every kind of model. See in the titration, how do you define the normality or the molarity of the solution? I haven't seen that part. So just, we are just announcing the titration feature. Because I have seen only the solution in the buret and the solution but I haven't seen the normality or the molarity. Yes, we are just announcing the feature. Because when you titration, there's a basic thing what you need to. Yeah, we are announcing the titration and solution in the future. Okay, and how to change the pH because I have seen that part also. The pH. pH, we have to just show over there. Okay, so you just, okay, so you bring the pH there just meter and you get the pH on that. The pH over there was just, because we added the solution like that it was just displaying the pH. There is nothing else, it was just displaying the pH. But when acid is added to base, you will change the pH. Yes, the pH will change that time during the titration. So that is, yeah. So you will have the calculations ready. Only we have to just bring the pH meter and check the new pH. Yes. So coming back to pH meter, if I carry out the titration, the pH value will change. Would the pH meter be able to tell me the changed value or changing value as titration happens? Yes, sir, it will. But there is this small thing that in the chemicals file we have to actually change, we do not have one feature that is mixtures that has to be still implemented. Once we have the mixtures feature, when two chemicals are added, the value of the pH of the mixture will be stored in the XML. So when we take the pH meter over there, it will read that value. No, the problem is that the XML will result only at the end of the experiment. While I am doing the experiment, the pH value is changing continuously as the titration happens. So after each activity, we are appending the activity to the XML. No, but the activity of titration will happen over a duration. Over a duration. In fact, it will be worthwhile to demonstrate that duration also, by for example, drops falling in. So when the color changes, the human eye detects it. But even before the color changes or after color changes, it will be interesting to provide the pH value experiment. So what we thought of is while titration, the pH changes very dynamically. So we can have a set of values for which we can show the pH. After certain set of steps, the pH can be shown because it cannot be, like we cannot vary it very dynamically, but we can have a set of pH values. No, you can verify it through calculations independently. Depending upon the volume of each component and the volume of each drop that is getting added, you should be able to calculate pH and represent it. It will require some more coding. What I am suggesting is in your future scope of work, please add a few explicit lines about this, because this is important. Secondly, the font that you have used and the color that you have used under the pH meter, or the pH meter and that blob is very visible, but the value is not very visible. So values should not have fancy colors, but should have readability for the people. I think that is very important. You will correct that, sir. I had one more question, which I have forgotten. If I remember, I will ask you later. When you pour liquid, you have to specify the volume. What happens if instead of 150, I specify 1500? Oh, it does that. You don't pour 1500, and actually it will be interesting to show the entire lab set of getting spoiled because some idiot is pouring more. So that's what will happen in reality, right? Second thing is, in the same window, you can have the PK value. I don't know how many... I think still 12th standard students do calculate PK. So when the pH goes, PK comes down. So that's parallel, you can have the two graphs in the same window, okay? So that way, you can see that at any given point of time, what is the pH of your mixture and what is the PK of your mixture. Thank you.