COBOT VR TRAINING
At Stanley Black & Decker we wanted to explore how VR could be used to upskill workers in our factories. We chose cobot operators because they were being trained with new technology at the time, and the intimidating cobots seemed like a perfect fit for VR. After choosing the Oculus Quest as our headset we then set out to understand it’s strengths and weaknesses. After I recreated the cobot interface we ran multiple tests to optimize resolution, size, angle, and placement to make sure our users could interact with the tablet naturally on the quest.
CONTENT ARCHITECTURE
After interviewing the cobot instructors as well as the cobot manufacturers I was able to distill the needed skills into a simplified lesson plan that focused on movement and manipulating pre-programmed workflows. Onboarding outside and inside VR was also crucial because many of the users had never experience VR. We also learned that having a “teacher” within the experience helped users pay better attention, so we created a robot teacher to help alleviate their underlying fear of robots.
COBOT ANATOMY
ROLL, PITCH, YAW
X, Y, Z AXES
SETTING A POINT
USABILITY TESTING
We traveled to the pilot factory and testing 2 managers, 4 operators, and 1 teacher who were in the middle of cobot training. We knew the average age of an operator was around 60 and their technical proficiency was very low but we were optimistic. With the help of strong onboarding and positive reinforcement, we received overwhelmingly positive feedback.
