Traditional university orientation formats struggle to convey the intellectual substance of STEM curricula, particularly in disciplines where core competencies, such as algorithmic thinking and formal reasoning, are inherently abstract. This paper presents TUMSphere, a serious virtual reality (VR) application built as an interactive digital twin of the TUM Bildungscampus Heilbronn, in which six curriculum-mapped mini-games translate foundational Information Engineering topics into hands-on VR challenges. The mini-games, covering introductory programming, hardware debugging, code completion, graph traversal, shortest-path optimization, and relational database querying, follow a graduated difficulty progression that mirrors the real semesters' structure of the degree. We describe the pedagogical rationale, the VR interaction mechanics, and nine cross-cutting design considerations that guided development. A within-subjects pilot study (N = 18) using pre-/post-knowledge tests, the System Usability Scale, a User Engagement Scale adaptation, and the Simulator Sickness Questionnaire yielded a statistically significant knowledge gain (p < 0.001, r = 0.86), good usability (SUS M = 76.4), high engagement (M = 4.21/5), and negligible simulator sickness (SSQ M = 7.1). Task performance logs confirmed the intended difficulty gradient across mini-games. These results suggest that embedding authentic academic challenges in an explorable VR campus is a viable and extensible approach to gamified STEM outreach.

翻译：传统的大学新生引导模式难以传达STEM（科学、技术、工程、数学）课程的知识实质，尤其是在那些核心能力（如算法思维和形式化推理）本就抽象的学科领域。本文介绍了TUMSphere，这是一个严肃的虚拟现实应用，作为TUM海尔布隆教育园区的交互式数字孪生体而构建。其中，六个与课程内容对应的小游戏将信息工程的基础主题转化为动手实践的VR挑战。这些小游戏涵盖入门编程、硬件调试、代码补全、图遍历、最短路径优化和关系数据库查询，其难度递进结构反映了真实学位课程的学期安排。我们阐述了其教学原理、VR交互机制，以及指导开发的九项贯穿性设计考量。一项采用被试内设计的试点研究（N = 18）使用了前/后知识测试、系统可用性量表、改编的用户参与度量表和模拟器晕动症问卷，结果显示：知识增益具有统计学显著性（p < 0.001, r = 0.86）、可用性良好（SUS M = 76.4）、参与度高（M = 4.21/5），且模拟器晕动症可忽略不计（SSQ M = 7.1）。任务表现日志证实了各小游戏间存在预期的难度梯度。这些结果表明，将真实的学术挑战嵌入一个可探索的VR校园，是一种可行且可扩展的、用于游戏化STEM科普推广的方法。