Robert Carpenter

MOD Australia

Robert Carpenter graduated from the Australian Defence Force Academy with a BSc in Information Systems in 1990, and the Royal Military College in 1991. After a series of regimental appointments in both the Survey and Intelligence Corps he left the Army in 2000. He then went on to became the first civilian member of the Australian Defence Simulation Office responsible for Joint simulation. During this time he supported a rapid increase in the use of serious games such as in the Australian Defence Force for experimentation and training. In 2005 Robert transferred to become the Deputy Director of the Army Simulation Wing responsible for the development of simulation in Army. In this position he has run serious games projects responsible for introducing and developing Virtual Battlespace and Steel Beasts Professional, the Aircrewman Virtual Reality Simulator and the Tactical Language System software. He also supports command and staff training using the Decisive Action serious game.

Robert has been a gamer for over 25 years he has experienced the benefits that games can bring to personal learning, in particular in the military domain. He also understands the limitations of games and issues with employing them.

He is married to a very understanding and long suffering woman and together they have three children. In addition to his 'gaming problem' he has an addiction to N scale model trains.