Rapid Simulation Construction

In the course of building four low-cost and fairly distinct desktop training simulations for the Air Force´s Air University and a simulated control system for NASA´s International Space System, we have worked to develop in-house standard practices and a toolset for rapid construction of training simulations. We present here this process and toolset and discuss its key strengths and shortcomings in the context of the simulations we have built using it. We focus in particular on two aspects of development that we found to be pivotal: scoping the level of fidelity for the simulation logic, and designing and constructing cost-effective simulation user interfaces that achieve instructional goals. These two aspects will be described in the context of the SimVentive and SimBionic toolsets, both of which are freely available for use by NASA or any other government agency.