

**Give your students a taste of life as a Software Engineer with this interactive “Production Outage” simulator. **
Unlike a standard coding task, this lab focuses on the high-stakes world of system reliability, performance optimization, and professional debugging.
This simulation is designed to be “pick-up-and-teach,” making it ideal for non-specialists or teachers looking for a high-impact lesson on the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) and systems architecture. Built with professional expertise from the University of Exeter, it ensures an authentic industry experience for KS3 and GCSE students.
Interactive Scenarios Included:
Production Bug Outage: A critical bug has hit the live environment. Students must contain the issue, investigate the root cause, and deploy a safe fix.
Broken Authentication: A system update has broken user logins. Students must scope the problem and restore service without compromising security.
Performance Bottleneck: The website is being overwhelmed by traffic. Students must apply caching, rate-limiting, and edge protections to keep the system online.
Key Features:
Real-Time System Console: Students receive “live” alerts and must analyze system logs to make the right engineering decisions.
Immediate Feedback: Every choice provides technical feedback, teaching students why an action succeeded or failed.
Framework Integration: Uses the IPDRR framework adapted for engineering: Identify the bottleneck, Protect the remaining services, Detect the root cause, Respond with a fix, and Recover to full speed.
Downloadable Engineering Log: Students can export their full incident report as a PDF to prove their technical reasoning and problem-solving skills.
What’s in the Pack?
Direct access link to the hosted Software Engineering Simulator.
Teacher Guide with “Incident Walkthroughs” and discussion points.
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