Developing an Educational Manufacturing Simulation

Simulation games are widely used in engineering education, especially for industrial engineering and operations management. A well-made simulation game aids in achieving learning objectives for students and minimal additional teaching by an instructor. Many simulation games exist for engineering education, but newer technologies now exist that improve the overall experience of developing and using these games. Although current solutions teach concepts adequately, poorly-maintained platforms distract from the key learning objectives, detracting from the value of the activities. A backend framework was created to facilitate an educational, competitive, participatory simulation of a manufacturing system that is intended to be easy to maintain, deploy, and expand.