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Satellite laboratory hosted a remote lecture with a 360 camera

Upper secondary school students followed the lecture from an 8K screen. The experiment was carried out in collaboration with telecommunications company Elisa.
Professori Esa Kallio ja tohtoriopiskelija Leo Nyman pitävät etäluentoa avaruustekniikasta.
Leo Nyman showing what satellite Aalto-1 looks like. Image: Ira Matilainen/Aalto University

Delays in transmissions and uncertain sound and image quality are familiar problems in remote teaching, and the corona virus has further highlighted these challenges. The problems are largely related to insecure internet connections, so Aalto University, Helsinki Media Arts Upper Secondary School and telecommunications service provider Elisa wanted to stream a live remote lecture to an 8K screen with a 5G connection.

The experiment was conducted on Wednesday 28 October in the space technology laboratory. With the help of Elisa's 360 camera, Esa Kallio, Professor of Space Physics, and PhD student Leo Nyman gave a remote lecture to high school students on space-related research at Aalto University. The students at Helsinki Media Arts Upper Secondary School were following the lecture on a 8K screen.

Pienoissatelliitin esittelyä 360-kameran kautta. Kuva: Ira Matilainen
With a 360-camera and 8K television screen, students could see exactly what was going on in the lab. Image: Ira Matilainen/Aalto University

New technology brings new opportunities

Setting up the 5G connection did not go as perfectly as planned. But slightly behind schedule, the broadcast was made to begin. In the lecture Professor Esa Kallio spoke about space research at Aalto University, and Leo Nyman told how 5G and, in the future, 6G will affect satellite and space research. With the high-quality video image, high school students were able to see up close what the satellites made in Aalto look like.

According to Professor Esa Kallio, the situation did not differ from the normal teaching situation from the lecturer's point of view.

‘Hopefully, this high-speed connection would at least allow for smooth picture and sound transmission, and hopefully it could be connected to other modern teaching methods as well, such as virtual reality,’ he says.

According to Leo Nyman, the development of remote connections makes sense because remote lectures are more time efficient. From the lecturer’s point of view, however, more interactivity would be needed for distance learning.

‘The atmosphere is a little different over a remote connection, but yes, this new technology brings new opportunities that are worth taking advantage of,’ he says.

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