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What: DARWARS PlugFest! 2005,
a training-systems-integration exercise.
Synopsis:
More than 30 people attended PlugFest! 2005, a mix of training-system
developers and leaders of organizations who share an interest
in delivering lightweight experiential training. BBN is developing
the DARWARS Core architecture to create a coherent training
landscape that spans multiple training systems, and is developing
tools to ease the task of defining, managing, reporting, and
evaluating the activities that occur within a training session.
Prior
to the conference BBN conducted two webcast introductory sessions
to introduce developers to the DARWARS training philosophy
and to the integration tools needed to interface their systems
and training scenarios with the DARWARS infrastructure. Documentation
and discussions were provided via a "Wiki" to which
everyone could contribute. Developers reported spending between
a few hours and a few days preparing for PlugFest!.
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BBN's
DARWARS developers help PlugFest! attendees integrate
their training games into the DARWARS infrastructure. |
When
developers arrived at the conference the entire DARWARS development
team was available to help them over any remaining integration
hurdles. On the second day each of the developers demonstrated
a training system launched and managed by DARWARS. All of
them commented on the value and ease with which they were
able to become part of DARWARS: "You made this easy."
While DARPA currently funds a half-dozen training systems
under the DARWARS Training Superiority program, these PlugFest!
attendees chose to participate because of the perceived value
of DARWARS integration to their customers and sponsors.
In
parallel with the developer working sessions, several
roundtable discussions addressed other common interests:
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Standards for experience-based training.
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Opportunities for collaborating with the DoD's Advanced
Distributed Learning (ADL) Initiative.
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After-action review.
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Techniques for federating multiple training systems
into a shared virtual world.
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Use-case studies of DARWARS performers who have achieved
the highest levels of integration.
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All agreed that DARWARS PlugFest 2005 was a successful event,
and one that bears repeating.
See the Agenda: Click to see
the agenda for PlugFest! 2005
Sponsorship
DARWARS is sponsored by DARPA, U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM),
the Marines' Program Manager for Training Systems (PM TRASYS),
and other DoD agencies. DARWARS technology and systems were
demonstrated at the Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation
& Education Conference (I/ITSEC) in 2004, and will be
demonstrated at I/ITSEC again in 2005 (see www.iitsec.org).
BBN Technologies (www.bbn.com)
is the integration contractor for DARWARS.
The
Market
U.S.-government-training customers, whose combined budgets
reach the multi-billion-dollar level, increasingly are employing
experiential training as they continue to cope with both their
substantial and rapidly evolving training requirements and
with the greater complexity of their missions. In 2002 the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) launched
DARWARS, a program to revolutionize the use of experiential
training in the military, and to capture and exploit the tremendous
technological advances made by the computer-gaming industry.
Harnessing
the Training Power of Virtual Experience
DARWARS is now at its midpoint in realizing this goal. Several
new serious games have been produced and deployed. BBN Technologies,
a Cambridge Massachusetts based, research-and-development
firm, has built the DARWARS Core, a suite of software tools
that integrates training systems and serious games into a
coherent platform for learners and instructors, enabling them
to acquire the benefits of experiential training.
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