As digital transformation continues to reshape industrial processes, immersive technologies are becoming increasingly important within training and applied research contexts. Within the EMPAIRED project, we are conducting a series of experimental activities that combine Virtual Reality, ergonomics, and human-machine interaction to explore new approaches to technical and professional education.
The experimentation takes place inside the Viroo platform, where a dedicated industrial virtual environment has been developed. Within this environment, participants are asked to complete a series of operational tasks designed to simulate realistic industrial activities. Before entering the immersive experience, students receive a short training session introducing both the tasks they will perform and the functionality of the VR simulation itself, allowing them to approach the experience with confidence and awareness. During the simulation, participants can interact with Alex, an embodied avatar designed to provide guidance and task-related information throughout the experience. This introduces a collaborative and assistive dimension to the training process, demonstrating how immersive environments can evolve into increasingly intelligent, accessible, and personalized learning systems. At the same time, the ErgonXR platform enables researchers to monitor posture and evaluate the ergonomic correctness of participants’ movements and actions during task execution. The integration of VR environments with ergonomic assessment tools opens significant opportunities for industrial training, allowing users not only to learn operational procedures but also to develop greater awareness of safety, movement quality, and ergonomic best practices.
VR Experience Demo
The Importance of Student Involvement
One of the most valuable aspects of these experimentations is the direct involvement of students. Experiences like these represent far more than technological demonstrations: they become meaningful educational opportunities that allow future professionals to engage firsthand with the technologies that are transforming the worlds of design, engineering, and industrial training.
The activities carried out within the EMPAIRED project involved students from the University of Siena and the Marche Polytechnic University, creating a collaborative and interdisciplinary environment where participants from different academic backgrounds could contribute with diverse perspectives and approaches.
For students in design, engineering, and technology-related disciplines, participating in immersive experimentation means experiencing directly the possibilities offered by Virtual Reality within educational and industrial contexts. It allows them to better understand how immersive experiences are designed, how users interact with virtual environments, and how technology can support both learning and human performance.
An especially valuable aspect of these activities is the diversity of the disciplines involved. Bringing together students from different academic fields highlights how immersive technologies and XR-based training systems can generate interdisciplinary interest and applications. Depending on their educational background, each student is able to observe and interpret the experience from a different perspective, collecting unique insights and reflections. Engineering students, for example, may focus on industrial workflows, system efficiency, ergonomic optimization, and human-machine interaction, while students from design and human-centered disciplines may pay closer attention to usability, communication, interaction design, accessibility, and user experience. This variety of viewpoints enriches the experimentation itself and encourages dialogue between disciplines that do not always have opportunities to collaborate directly.
Participating in experiences like these also encourages students to reflect on how immersive technologies could be integrated into their own academic paths, research interests, and future professional careers. For many participants, this represents an opportunity to imagine new applications of Virtual Reality within their own fields, whether related to training, healthcare, manufacturing, education, design, or other emerging sectors.
These activities also provide students with important insights into how scientific research and European-funded projects operate. Through participation in experimentation processes, data collection activities, and interdisciplinary collaboration, students gain exposure to research methodologies and innovation practices that are rarely experienced through traditional classroom teaching alone As a result, these initiatives contribute to an additional layer of professional and personal development. Beyond technical skills, students develop critical thinking, methodological awareness, and a deeper understanding of collaborative research environments and international innovation ecosystems.
Ultimately, involving students from diverse educational backgrounds demonstrates how immersive technologies such as Virtual Reality can serve as a common ground between disciplines, fostering collaboration and helping future professionals imagine new applications for these tools within education, industry, healthcare, design, and many other sectors.
Towards More Immersive and Conscious Learning
The experimentations carried out within the EMPAIRED project demonstrate how Virtual Reality can become a strategic tool not only for technological innovation but also for creating more engaging, practical, and interdisciplinary educational pathways. Involving students in these activities means investing in the training of future professionals by giving them the opportunity to explore emerging technologies directly and to actively participate in the development of new learning and research models.
In a rapidly evolving industrial and educational landscape, building stronger connections between research, universities, and immersive technologies is essential for developing skills that are truly aligned with the challenges of the future.
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