Construction simulation

An exciting part of the construction training centre will be the Building Management Simulation Centre - a large virtual reality simulation theatre which will recreate a construction site environment and use professional actors to create a 'real life' on site scenario for training and developing construction managers.

The Building Management Simulation Centre will feature a 16x3metre, curved theatre, which will recreate a construction site environment using a panoramic screen. Using a joystick the students can move through the building, along roads, inside rooms, up stairs and on scaffolding where clever use of perspective means a student can even experience vertigo. Each task is set within an extremely intense and very pressured environment - one which could never be carried out in the real world because of issues of safety and implications of cost.

It allows participants the opportunity to make mistakes that won't affect the client, finance or employees, enables them to learn from their mistakes and provides them with excellent feedback from a team of fully trained observers and actors. The beauty of the construction training centre from an employer's perspective is that any situation can be created to challenge even the most experienced manager.

Filming work on one of the first two simulations to be used at the UK centre has just begun - using a residential development in Wolverhampton on which Haslam Homes have just started construction. The second project will involve a multi-storey office block.