Matt Bugbee

Problem: Traditional classroom environments are often times coma inducing. This leads to a lack of attention and lower knowledge retention. That's a little bit of a problem when the class is on fire fighting techniques within an airport setting.

Solution: The Dedo team created a suite of interactive applications that bring fire training to the modern age.

• Aircraft Familiarization: Utilizing the Unreal game engine, we created a 3D environment that allows firefighters to virtually explore all aspects of several models of aircraft.
• Airport Familiarization: Also utilizing the Unreal game engine, we created a 3D evironment that allows firefighters to navigate an airfield and learn about all the markings and lighting systems in both day and night time settings
• Strategies and Tactics: Allows students and instructors to develop hypothetical accident scenes – placing crashed planes, environmental barriers, and vehicles on a 2D airfield – and planning an emergency response.
• Classroom Utilities: Utilizes P2P network communication to connect the instructor to the students. The application displays a seating chart, allows the pushing of pop quiz questions and the sending/retrieving of Scenarios for use in Strategies and Tactics.

Results: The goal was to make a more engaging experience for the students. If the student is more engaged, they'll be more likely to retain what they're learning. To date the suite of applications has helped increase knowledge retention by 40%.