Posted on May. 7, 2019 by VirTra Inc

When the time dedicated to training your team is limited, it can be easy to run the same few drills multiple time. Did you know there are a hundred ways to use your VirTra simulator to benefit your law enforcement or military training program? If your training format has become routine, here are a few ideas on how your team can incorporate a few fresh ideas to keep your team on their toes:

Training for error

When you are in the field, there is almost no chance to get into a perfect stance every time you have to fire your weapon. When training skills by inducing errors that have to be overcome, you can optimize your reaction and add a new level of difficulty for training safely on the VirTra simulator. The V-100® simulator offers a portable solution where you can easily add balance and stability trainers to help remove the stable mundane environment and have something new for trainees to learn. With new physical obstacles to overcome, you can add a new level of difficulty to your training environment that trainees can adapt to and master.

Add realistic props to create coverage

Whether you’re using the portable single screen V-100 or the fully immersive high fidelity V-300®, you can add simple accessories to help create the coverage you would be looking to find when conducting fieldwork. The addition of wood or 3D props in the training environment can also drive training points centered around topics like active shooter drills and other de-escalation scenarios. Keep in mind, if you’re going to go for that level of realism the props you introduce into the scenario must fit the situation. With props added to the scenarios, your team can have actual cover and concealment they can use tactically to work through the scenario in a realistic, 3D environment.

Explore more branching options

VirTra’s unique scenarios contain up to 85 different decision-making paths to possible resolutions. While most officers might like to get through training as quickly as possible, it can be useful to slow down and explore what happens when a curveball is thrown in the middle of a scenario. Especially if this is not the trainees first time through the simulator, exploring multiple branching options in the use of force or de-escalation training scenarios to see how the trainee reacts to the dialog within a scene can be a useful teaching moment. Testing their patients by exploring more dialog branches can hone their skills for de-escalation the person and teach communication skills. Those valuable teaching moments can turn into significant savings on possible litigation for the officer reacting too hasty under pressure.

Pair training with a Threat Fire®

VirTra’s one of a kind patented technology allows your team to get a sudden jolt when simulating return fire, bombs detonating, being run over, and more from the training scenario. More importantly, this shoot back device raises the stakes while in the simulation training which induces a physiological change in the trainee when zapped which influences their overall performance. In fact, the Threat-Fire was recently featured in a clinical study that showed that the use of the Threat-Fire improved performance of the trainees. By adding this tool to your training in the V-300 simulator, you can improve your team’s performance over other forms of training.

Build custom scenarios

While there are hundreds of options to pick from in the VirTra scenario library for any of our simulators, there is always room for improvement. If your team has specific geography that you want to train your team on or something creative you want to incorporate with a scenario, you can create scenarios with our V-Author® tool. This unique software allows you to go out and take panoramic photos of any local area you would like to set a scene up in and create your scenario to customize training in your VirTra V-180® or V-300 simulator. You can even film people to be in the scene so that the realism places like a farm or a mountain area feels more realistic with characters that would naturally be in that location.

Training with simulation training has shown to have a whole host of benefits from improved performance and increased situational awareness. However, to gain those benefits, trainers must keep making changes and improvements to their curriculum. By adding things like props and a stability training ball to help spice things up, your team can reengage with the scenarios in a new way. Another great way to enhance training is to take full advantage of the additional tools available with the VirTra simulators like the Threat-Fire and V-Author software to create your unique scenarios. These tips can help improve the number of people you can train. Your training with VirTra should also maximize the level of engagement to enhance learning and keep your community safe.


If you would like more info on how to improve your training with VirTra, click here to learn more.

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