Enhancing Undergraduate Engineering Education through HLA-Based Simulation Exploration Experience (SEE)

The Simulation Exploration Experience (SEE) [1] offers a transformative approach to undergraduate engineering education by engaging students in distributed, high-level architecture (HLA) [6] simulations of complex space missions.This innovative program unites geographically dispersed university teams, industry professionals, NASA personnel, and faculty to collaboratively design, develop, test, and execute interoperable simulation components using open modeling and simulation (M&S) standards.By leveraging HLA, SEE enables seamless integration of each team's contributions into a cohesive, large-scale simulated space mission conducted over the Internet.This immersive, hands-on experience introduces undergraduate students to the rapidly growing field of M&S, which is often underrepresented in traditional engineering curricula.Through SEE, students acquire critical technical skills, gain experience in interdisciplinary collaboration, and gain exposure to real-world applications, thereby enhancing their employability and preparing them for careers in the aerospace and simulation industries.This paper explores the structure, outcomes, and educational impact of SEE, highlighting its role in fostering innovation, teamwork, and industry-relevant expertise among undergraduate engineering students.