Hello fellow KSP'ers, I'm a teacher in Germany with an alternative k-8 school system.* I come from an engineering/computer science background, so as you can imagine I'm pushing for a tech savvy internet driven curriculum. Three weeks ago I bought Kerbal Space Program (KSP). Now I'm playing it with students and something amazing started happening.* The kids who don't speak english (just German), started*playing the game in self*organized*groups, started to reach the objectives that took me hours to get to, and build teams*around the key kids taking on fields from piloting to*engineering! Let me*break*down how incredible this is: #1 *With only the basic understanding of game*mechanics (shift+,control-, wasd, and t,r,g), they were able to web translate enough of the*construction*description information into german to build*launchable*rockets and (more*impressively)*space planes.* #2 Asking the right physics questions and building*hypotheses, "why is it so hard to*maneuver my rocket*once*its*in orbit?".*(Three full large orange tanks of fuel, can do that.) My answer try google-ing "inertia". *Kids*especially the 9 - 14 year olds*don't tend to ask questions involving*advanced orbital*mechanics and other physics*concepts. The kids told me the*orbits the game calculates*around*the Mun must be wrong. (After some playing I think they might be right, because it looks like the game only takes into account the mass of one planet at a time.) I had to tell them*gravity*is effected by distance so the mass of Kerbalin or the Sun, have too small an effect to be noticed in that orbit. *Trying to derive*physics*conclusions*on paper wasn't*something*I was doing until*university. *Now its a part of the classes morning*routine!* #3 A handful of kids*consistently*make rockets that don't explode on the launchpad. So the whole class has*oriented*towards*building*a type of leadership*around, the*skills*required*for seeing the mission through. *Sure the*majority*of launches still end up in the sea or wildly off on large solar orbits without fuel. But the teams are building*themselves*and including everyone for there*tailored*skill set.**Something*you wouldn't have thought possible from kids without*being instructed to do so. ___________ The reason I'm writing on the forum today, is because I've been seeing people wanting to add competitive destructive gameplay elements, such as weaponizing spacecraft or PvP mechanics.. I want to say while that games sounds Awesome and I would love to play it personally! Thats Not right for schools. The game the way it is currently, Allows for a great deal of collaboration, without the pretense of competition. This is why we can have 10 and 12 year old girls playing with out getting overwhelmed or bullied.. I must point out, that this can be used as one of the greatest teaching tools ever made for the next generation of engineers! And right now I have the "popular girls" of the class actively playing it and the other girls are following. (Some science or engineering university is going to thank me one day!) My point being this, KSP or a version of it, should be licensed and developed for schools all over the world! Here in Germany, I would be happy to work towards getting government funding for development and distribution of KSP in the mainstream school system. If there is anyone from SQUAD who agrees with me I would be very happy to meet with them. Thanks for reading, I'm very open to suggestions and help keeping ahead of my students. Other games... projects... Ideas... anything. It's become a full time job trying to keep up.
