Students create digital interactive twin of NAIT simulation facility

“They took it to the nth degree to make sure it was perfect”

Confusion isn’t usually the reaction you want from a client, but for a group of Digital Media and IT (DMIT) students it was an early sign of success.

Their project began in January. John Sutherland, director of NAIT’s Centre for Advanced Medical Simulation (CAMS), had reached out to DMIT chair Steve Chattargoon (Computer Systems Technology ’01) to ask if students could build a digital twin for the facility – essentially a virtual, interactive copy.

A CAMS program advisory committee member had pointed out the tool’s applications in health care in improving diagnostics, workflows, efficiencies and more. Sutherland felt that a replica – even simple representations of rooms and equipment – could also help students prepare for simulations at CAMS or showcase it to prospective future industry clients.

“Count me in,” Chattargoon told him.

When Chattargoon then pitched the idea to DMIT Animation students, 17 responded with similar enthusiasm, eager to show off skills and build a portfolio piece for job hunting. He also knew it would save CAMS thousands of dollars in potentially outsourcing the job.

Toward the end of February, CAMS manager Carolyn Kincade (Bachelor of Technology ’17, Dental Laboratory Technology ’07) received an email from the students reporting on progress.

She examined the attachments – images of CAMS rooms and halls – and wrote back: “Thank you for sending us the photographs you took for reference but where are the renders?”

“And they said, ‘No,’” says Kincade. “‘Those are the renders.’”

Beyond expectations

Opened in NAIT’s Centre for Applied Technology in 2016, CAMS looks and feels like the set of a hospital drama.

Across 6,000 square feet, it features “theatres” that mimic real medical environments to the point of being virtually indistinguishable. It also offers a multimedia-enabled room capable of evoking safe but realistic emergency scenarios designed to test student skills. Behind the scenes are control rooms for simulation facilitators.

All that detail (and more, including waiting and storage rooms) is captured in the students’ digital twin, from a light fixture on the ceiling to the texture of the floor.

“Everything was beyond what we thought it would be,” says Kincade.

Some 200 pieces of equipment can be dropped into any part of the twin, adds Sutherland. “You can set a room for any scenario.” And you can interact with it all. “You can pull out drawers, you can prop up the bed – anything that’s functional in the real world is functional in this space.”

To achieve that degree of realism, students combed through CAMS with tape measures. They researched equipment models to double-check specs. “They took it to the absolute nth degree to make sure that it was perfect,” says Kincade.

But the key to the students’ success, besides digital animation skills, was their ability to organize. Most capstone projects are handled by small groups, says Katy Blakely (Bachelor of Business Administration ’19, Marketing ’15), the student who led the project overall. So they split into teams, introduced workflows, set up regular check-ins, and tracked progress.

“We made a lead for each team,” says Blakely. “We made a set of steps that they each had to do, and then we built a process map.” That is, they created a temporary studio.

“They were worried about how many of us wanted to do this project, but we got through it,” says Blakely, proudly.

Chattargoon feels the same way. “This was highly complex, and we watched them embrace it and run with it,” he says.

“The sky's the limit," for the group behind this project, Chattargoon adds. "Any company would be lucky to hire any of these highly skilled grads."

Unexpected benefits

In the end, the work was done in just 11 weeks, putting completion and launch for the entire project on track for some time in 2026 – far sooner than the CAMS team had asked.

“I knew that we could do it, and I knew that we could do more than what they were expecting,” says Juan Giannitti, the student who led the team assigned to replicate CAMS’ layout and room.

What’s more, he adds, “we created the basis for them to do whatever they want now.”

The sky may now be the limit for CAMS, too. Blakely and her group created handover documents to ease the project’s transition to an upcoming group of DMIT students, namely programmers. In the coming semesters, the twin may be enhanced with virtual or augmented reality, and characters to interact with, in effect creating a simulation of a simulation.

“We created the basis for them to do whatever they want.”

In the meantime, industry colleagues are already asking about opportunities the project may represent, says Sutherland. Could it help in improving the layout of a surgical suite? Or in developing a smart hospital? Could it be used to identify ways to reduce ER wait times?

“There are so many use cases that we didn't even know about going into this project,” says Sutherland.

“In my mind, it's an absolute game changer. We already had this unique, state-of-the-art physical space. Now, replicating that in a digital space really makes you realize the possibilities are endless.”