The COVID-19 pandemic forced Northeastern University (NU) to pivot to virtual in Spring 2020 and spurred innovations in hybrid learning called NUFlex that were implemented starting in Fall 2020. However, for many courses and topics taught at NU standard hybrid learning is insufficient to create the ideal pedagogical experience for both students and instructors. Extended reality technologies such as augmented, mixed, and virtual reality can be leveraged to make the NUFlex experience more dynamic and immersive. We are developing best practices and pilots that blend XR technologies with course activities through iterative improvement while collecting student reflections, work samples, and survey data, that we present in this Work-in-Progress. We hope that these technologies can be scaled into other courses in the future.

A newly developed hand rehabilitation system is presented that combines robotics and interactive gaming to facilitate repetitive performance of task specific exercises for patients recovering from neurological motor deficits. A two degree of freedom robotic interface allows coordinated motions of the forearm and the hand (pronation/supination and grasp/release, respectively). It is driven by two novel Electro-Rheological Fluid based hydraulic actuators. Tests were conducted to characterize these actuators, and feed-forward controllers were developed for their force/torque control. A virtual reality environment (maze game) was developed in which the robot applies force fields to the user as the user navigates the environment, forming a haptic interface between the patient and the game.

In this paper the virtual reality augmented cycling kit (VRACK) a mechatronic rehabilitation system with an interactive virtual environment is presented. It was designed as a modular system that can convert most bicycles in virtual reality (VR) cycles. Novel hardware components embedded with sensors were implemented on a stationary exercise bicycle to monitor physiological and biomechanical parameters of participants while immersing them in a virtual reality simulation providing the user with visual, auditory and haptic feedback. This modular and adaptable system attaches to commercially-available stationary bicycle systems and interfaces with a personal computer for simulation and data acquisition processes. The bicycle system includes novel handle bars based on hydraulic pressure sensors and innovative pedals that monitor lower extremity kinetics and kinematics. Parameters monitored by these systems are communicated to a practitioner's interface screen and can be amplified before entering its virtual environment. The first prototype of the system was successful in demonstrating that a modular mechatronic kit can monitor and record kinetic, kinematic and physiologic parameters of riders.