Race to the South Pole

The Strategic Logistics course taught through the School of Business at UNSW Canberra used several real-world events and scenarios as case-studies to explore the concepts being covered. One of these was the early 20th Century Race to the South Pole and the idea was hatched to turn this set of readings into a simulation where the students could play the role of explorer. They would be able to select their crew and transport, setup supply depots and made decisions an the actual journey which would would effect their speed and survival.

Project Details

The web-based simulation has been re-created as a version two with all new UI and systems to support a cleaner and simpler play experience bringing forward the ideas of risk vs reward as players attempt to succeed where Scott failed.

TECHNOLOGY & DEVELOPMENT

The active design and development of the project continues with feedback from the academics, education designers and the students being incorporated into the experience as well as the tuning of the simulation numbers. The staff and work integrated learning student developers are using the Unity game engine to bring together all the elements via the webgl experience. 

Credits

"The Immersive Technology team have been truly collaborative partners, bringing a range of competencies and experience to the successful development and ongoing enhancement of our logistics strategy simulation app. This is combined with their impressive work ethic and willingness to drive continuous improvement in response to staff and student feedback. The resulting online experience is immersive and engaging in ways that allows our postgraduate students to explore the strategic dimensions of logistics within a historical case study of the Race to the South Pole that played out some 110 years ago. Given that our students are predominantly Australian Defence Force personnel, direct experience of the benefits of simulation technology to support individual learning in real time is fundamental to the ongoing development of an agile and effective defence force."
Dr Jim Rooney, Associate Professor, Accounting and Governance, UNSW Canberra

Academic Stakeholder and Educational Design

James (Jim) Rooney (Associate Professor, Accounting and Governance, UNSW Canberra)
Emily Rutherford (Learning & Teaching Development Leader, UNSW Canberra)
Anne Lahey (Educational Designer/Developer, UNSW Canberra)

Design & Development

Ashley Hall (Immersive Technologies Specialist & Developer)
Graham Hannah (Manager of Immersive Technologies)

Work Integrated Learning Student Partners

Haochen (Aiden) Shi (Software Engineering Thesis and Industrial Experience)
Lucy Shi (Media & Design PEP)
Jing Deng (Software Engineering Thesis)

Get Involved

There are internal Teams Channels, Miro Boards and working groups covering the development collaboration with UNSW Canberra Business School. To find out more, join the team, get a demo or have your class or promotion use-case included just get in touch.