Matthew Haywood holds down the arrow key on his keyboard to move himself through a dimly lit tunnel. At first glance, you might think he's slacking off at his desk job, sneaking in a game of Doom, but a closer look reveals more than just a video game.

Haywood is actually creating mining simulations to improve visibility on load-haul-dump machines (LHDs), underground mobile equipment used to scoop up rock after it has been blasted.

"It's fun," says Haywood, 31. "I grew up playing video games, and the other guys always bug me, saying 'You get to play video games all day now.'"

Haywood is a research associate at the Sudbury-based Mining Innovation, Rehabilitation and Applied Research Corp. (MIRARCO), a research and technical service company that promotes mining innovation.

While he also works from time to time on smaller projects, his focus since joining MIRARCO two years ago has been to make computer simulations of LHDs to improve safety in underground mines.

Haywood works with a model of the Falconbridge Limited Kidd Mine in Timmins and adds tunnels, refuge bays, spray-painted signage, and all the other components of a mine to create a realistic simulation.

He demonstrates how an LHD travels through the underground tunnels, making its way past computer-simulated miners, and how the line of sight for the LHD operator can be obstructed.

Independence
Haywood enjoys the flexibility his position offers. Although he has deadlines to meet, there is no one breathing down his neck, which is a plus for anyone who works well independently and is personally motivated, he says.

His initial task when hired was to learn the Blender software program, which is a 3-D creation program used for computer graphics and animation. The software utilizes a simple game engine that does not require the user to know coding. However, to enhance simulations he has also had to learn to code in Python.

While the salary of a researcher working for a non-profit organization is approximately 10 per cent lower than that of an industry job, say for a gaming

company, it's a great way to gain experience and develop a foundation to build on, he says.

Although Haywood does confess to being a bit of a video game and computer junkie in his teenage years, surprisingly, he didn't take any computer courses in high school. In fact, in his final year of high school, he was still trying to figure out what career path to follow.

Education
"I remember (teachers and my parents) saying 'What do you want to be when you grow up?' and I didn't know. I knew that higher education was the way to go, so I went on to study at Laurentian University."

His educational path took a few turns. After graduating from Nickel District Secondary School in Sudbury, he studied Math at Laurentian, and went on to complete a Bachelor of Arts degree in Anthropology. He then returned to Laurentian to complete a three-year degree in Computer Science, while working in a restaurant to pay his way through school.

His current position requires him to learn new computer applications all the time. That's where his university education has helped. In Computer Science at the university level, one learns the theory behind coding. He recalls a professor once saying to the class "You don't go to university to learn things. You go to university to learn how to learn."

Today, rather than "fumbling around trying to learn something new," he tries to understand the theory behind the application and the learning comes with relative ease, he says.

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