Virtual Dog Helps Teach CSU Vet Students
FORT COLLINS, Colo. (CBS4) ―
Students
at the Colorado State University Veterinary School are helping to
create a virtual dog as a way to teach people how to properly give
animals acupuncture. The treatment is becoming more popular with
veterinarians to treat a variety of conditions.
The virtual dog prevents a student from poking the pooch in the wrong place with an acupuncture needle.
Engineering students at CSU are working with veterinarian professors to create the teaching tool.
"When you touch this you can actually feel the bones underneath," said Ben Cordova, an engineering student.
The
team has created a head with all the right textures and programmed a
computer so students can push on the dog with a special pointer. The
pointer sends three-dimensional information to the computer as students
use it to practice which place to put needles on the dog's head.
Dr.
Narda Robinson, a CSU Veterinarian, said there are 65 acupuncture
points just on a dog's head that students could learn to simulate
without using a live animal.
"So the student can do it over and over and learn what the feel is, what the points are," said Robinson.
"As
a teacher she can go and put the points on the dog that are correct and
then a student can come in after her and practice on those points and
get tested on how well they replicated her touches," Cordova said.
The student engineers hope to model an entire's dog's body eventually.
The CSU students have named the virtual dog the "sim-pooch."
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