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Devs: Thanks, on behalf of my eight-year-old

Nikolai

By Nikolai
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Nikolai

Nikolai

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She finally did it!

I told my eight-year-old daughter she could get a full version of Kerbal Space Program if she stuck with it long enough to get a rocket into orbit. I'd help her as much as I could, and answer any questions she might have, but I wouldn't build her rocket or fly it for her. She worked at it for a while, but got distracted by a Disney game she got for Christmas. I thought I might have missed my window to get her interested.

Last night, she came running up to me. "Dad! Dad! Dad! Come look!" -- and she took me to the computer and proudly moused over the periapsis and apoapsis in the map view. Both were higher than 70,000 meters over Kerbin.

She didn't have enough fuel to get back, but she couldn't have been any more pleased with herself. Grinning from ear to ear and just beaming with happiness. She had done it.

So, first thing this morning, I set her up with a store account and got her her own copy of KSP. We'll download a full copy of the game when I get home.

Thank you, devs, for the opportunity to share spaceflight with my daughter in such a way that she can see why it's so interesting and so much fun to me, even though she's eight. And you should hear her talk about technical issues surrounding spaceflight with her friends! ("I was going to turn retrograde and land, but I ran out of fuel. It doesn't matter, though; Jebediah looks pretty happy anyway.")

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Spatzimaus

Spatzimaus

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One of us... one of us...

It's a beautiful thing to see someone get hooked on this game, especially someone that young. In no time at all, she'll be parking fuel stations around Pol and landing SSTO spaceplanes on Laythe, but for now, she'll have the joy of her first landing on Mun and first trip to Duna. Just remind her to take a lot of screenshots (F1 key), so she can look back on her old designs later.

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johnpoz

johnpoz

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Great post - thanks for sharing!!! Just amazing!! That an eight year old understands what retrograde is, and trying to explain it to her friends is fuel for the soul for our future!!! Possible to post a screenshot of her rocket or .craft file?

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Flymetothemun

Flymetothemun

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KSP: $26

Computer able to run KSP: $500-2000

Being able to get an 8-year-old interested in building and launching rockets: Priceless

May your daughter do much better than Jebediah Kerman in her pursuit of Kerbal and real-world space. May she do things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Then, she would be living the true life of a Kerbal.

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Dr. Muttonstache

Dr. Muttonstache

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("I was going to turn retrograde and land, but I ran out of fuel. It doesn't matter, though; Jebediah looks pretty happy anyway.")

And then that moment when your 8 year old daughter speaks better English than a typical 18 year old girl. thumbs-up.gif

Gives me hope for the future, that there will be less swagyolo420f**kschoolparty24/7 people running around, and that more people are getting interested in space. Good work , Nikolai!

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Chruschtschow

Chruschtschow

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Great story. Kids can become astonishingly dedicated, far more than most adults expect.

Heh, my two-year-old loves to climb on my knees when I play it. For now, he likes the explosions and has learned that they are especially impressive when he starts hitting that especially large key on the keyboard. :D

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Nikolai

Nikolai

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Possible to post a screenshot of her rocket or .craft file?

Sure, if I can get this right. Remember that these screenshots are from the demo (0.18.3), so the launch pad and launch tower are still there. She's eager to play without them (as well as build some rovers) as soon as she finishes her reading homework this evening. These screenshots are taken with an older computer that's set aside for her use, and it's showing its age, so the screenshots are smallish and the resolution somewhat lacking.

7H6Gqbp.png

Here it is on the pad. Bill looks unimpressed. (Jeb is in orbit at this point.) The thing balances pretty well. She didn't use angle snap.

p5VHnXe.jpg

And here it is from more above. She likes the nose cones. It's a pretty basic design; most of her challenge involved when to perform the gravity turn. She ended up in a roughly 80 km x 200 km orbit, which was good enough to get the registered version.

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Nikolai

Nikolai

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And then that moment when your 8 year old daughter speaks better English than a typical 18 year old girl.

That she does, and it makes me proud. She's always trying to explain herself and what she thinks, especially when she builds things; I think the precision she needs to describe what she is doing and what she wants to do accurately has made her a very good and careful speaker.

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