The fidelity of the home simulation kit could be improved
PAD
While participants found the home kits to be helpful in improving their skills and comfort with the robotic simulator, they also had some suggestions for refining the kits for future use. Their suggestions focused on model design transferability to the robotic simulator, as well as on the mechanical challenges they experienced.Regarding model design transferability, despite the usefulness of the sponge to learn to judge needle orientation and to practice the wrist motions to drive the needle, it had a different feeling than the robotic simulator. In general, participants expressed that using a sponge for the needle driving activity in the home kit produced more resistance than the robotic simulator. Students reported that this difference made it challenging to understand exactly how much pressure should be used when driving the needle on the robotic simulator. Some suggested using another material with less resistance to better mimic the virtual foam and its lack of haptic feedback on the robotic simulator.“If you’re actually threading the needle through the real sponge, you’re going to feel resistance, but here [on the robotic simulator], you don’t feel anything.” (Participant #14)Participants also suggested that it would be helpful to include something on the home kit that would closely resemble the clutch of the robotic simulator.“Maybe put some type of pad for the clutch, because this basically felt slightly different…I got used to pressing with my finger curled up and when I was like, ‘Oh wait, where’s the clutch?’ and I had to re-find the clutch.” (Experimental Participant #26)Regarding mechanical challenges, participants noted that certain parts of the home kit were less comfortable to use or needed to be reinforced to prevent any breakage, interfering with their ability to use the practice kits as directed. Particularly, many students mentioned the difficulties they experienced with the stiffer grip of the tweezers used to design the hand controllers in the home simulation kits.“The tips of the tweezers didn’t have much grip either, and so you’re… pressing really, really hard to hold the needle in place, because otherwise it was just slipping out of place. So I guess maybe swap to a different type of tweezer that might have more grip.” (Experimental Participant #17)