Quick look
Iowa State researchers are working with Polk County Emergency Management to develop an online, multiplayer training game to help emergency forces plan and practice their disaster responses.
AMES, Iowa - It's a crowded Saturday morning at the downtown farmers' market in a major Midwestern city.
It's tomato time. Peppers are ripe and red. There are food trucks. Musicians. And, despite clouds to the west, lines of people.
Then, with little warning, a storm blows in. And keeps blowing: Damaging wind gusts of 58 mph and a damage trail that eventually extends to 240 miles. A derecho has hit downtown.
How will emergency management officials respond? What should police do? Firefighters? Medical responders? Public works employees? The mayor's office?
A "novel, online serious game on emergency response" designed, built and evaluated by Iowa State University engineers in partnership with Polk County Emergency Management in Des Moines will help emergency forces practice their responses. The game will force "players to grapple with the uncertainty and trade-offs in their actions," according to a project summary.
The U.S. National Science Foundation is supporting development of the multiplayer, online game with a one-year grant of $700,000 from the agency's Civic Innovation Challenge program. Cameron MacKenzie, an associate professor of industrial and manufacturing systems engineering, is leading the project. (See sidebar for other collaborators.)
MacKenzie said the project was sparked by a comment made by A.J. Mumm, the director of Polk County Emergency Management, during discussions about a previous grant proposal: "Wouldn't it be great to have computer games to train emergency management officials?"
MacKenzie kept that idea in mind for a potential research project. That led to a planning grant last fall and a full grant this year.
Adding intensity, engagement
Brett McIntyre, a program assistant for Polk County Emergency Management, said there are a variety of traditional resources for emergency management training.
They can include peer-led training groups, mentor relationships, workshops from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and classes at the National Disaster and Emergency Management University based in Maryland. Class offerings include EO102, "Fundamentals of Threats and Hazards."
It's all about creating "a high-pressure, high-stakes situation" for emergency responders, the researchers wrote, "thereby enhancing their communities' disaster preparedness."
And then there are locally organized tabletop planning exercises. Emergency managers, responders and partners gather around a conference table and work their way through a disaster response.
"People evaluate what they would do," McIntyre said. "How does that fit or interfere with existing plans and practices? What gaps exist?"
An online, multiplayer game - complete with video, audio, graphics and a scoring system - could "add a level of intensity that isn't there when we're just discussing scenarios," he said. "That extra bit of intensity should get people engaged."
As the person responsible for the training program at Polk County Emergency Management, McIntyre said, "It's natural for us to be involved in this project to develop another training tool we can have in the toolbox. Something like this could be used and reused."
Storyboards and curveballs
"Run everyone," shouts a farmer's market vendor, raincoat hood up, lightning cracking behind her, wind pushing at the trees. "Get to shelter!"
Then a huge tree topples behind her, nearly crushing her vegetable stand and barely, just barely, missing a fellow vendor.
You don't see and hear that on a tabletop.
It's a very early project video - still just an experiment - generated by artificial intelligence tools.
"We're currently testing various techniques and workflows to understand what works best for creating realistic emergency management training content," said Abram Anders, Iowa State's Jonathan Wickert Professor of Innovation and associate director of the Student Innovation Center. "We're exploring approaches like detailed storyboarding, using reference images, and comparing capabilities across different AI platforms."
The goal is to establish "reproducible methods" that emergency management officials can use to make their own custom training tools, all without special expertise or big budgets.
That way, when emergency responders log in for disaster training, they're in the middle of a timely, relevant and engaging training session.
Decisions will be tracked and scored. As resources are deployed, outcomes will shift. It could allow for players to switch roles - the mayor's office playing as firefighters, for example - to learn what other responders must consider and decide.
And, at any time during the game, MacKenzie said the facilitator could say, "Oh, I want to throw this curveball in."
It's all about creating "a high-pressure, high-stakes situation" for emergency responders, the researchers wrote, "thereby enhancing their communities' disaster preparedness."
