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

[Dr. Muttonstache]

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.

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.

That small thing got to a nice orbit, I guess i'm building too big of rockets then!

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.

And with that said you have made my girlfriend happy to know that I've changed my mind about not having children, you just gave me hope man, thanks.

...maybe in a few years though, after college and a stable job

Edited April 30, 2013 by Dr. Muttonstache

[X_DARTH_GIZMO_X]

Awsome!!! and this is why i love videogame just to hear her success story and you for for giving her a task. And The awesome reward of buying her the full game if said task was complete. she is one lucky daughter to have a father like you. "hats off" to you my friend

[Spatzimaus]

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.

That's a very nice little design, and looks very similar to my own first ship. There are a few things she could do to make it better, like sticking some SAS modules on (otherwise, the ASAS does basically nothing), and adding a small RCS tank and some jets above the separator ring would allow the capsule to safely de-orbit itself, but the basic design is sound. Slap some landing gear on it and stick it on top of a larger booster, and it could easily land on Mun or Minmus and come home.

[Nikolai]

There are a few things she could do to make it better, like sticking some SAS modules on (otherwise, the ASAS does basically nothing),

Isn't that small black ring beneath the decoupler and the ASAS a SAS unit?

As for the rest, I think she'll work it out. She likes to experiment. And we still talk about how she wants to do stuff. She told me this morning that after she learns to dock, she plans to put a docking port on each stage and de-orbit debris so that her near-Kerbin space won't end up as cluttered as mine.

Slap some landing gear on it and stick it on top of a larger booster, and it could easily land on Mun or Minmus and come home.

Actually, shortly after her orbital success, she put some landing gear on it, took it out to the pad to try it out... and was disappointed to find out that the demo's landing gear don't reach past the end of the engine bell. So she's looking forward to "better" landing gear, too.

The "improvement" that immediately occurred to me was to ensure that the radial decouplers fire after the four tanks/engines around the core and before the engine on the bottom of the core. But hey, she made it work. I'm sure she'll try to make the design even better.

[Spatzimaus]

Isn't that small black ring beneath the decoupler and the ASAS a SAS unit?

My bad. Yes, it is, and a ship that size doesn't need more than one.

So she's looking forward to "better" landing gear, too.

One alternative would be to replace the central engine with the LV-909, a much shorter engine. Its thrust is much lower (50kN versus 200-215), but I'll get to that in a minute. Another alternative would be to use radial engines, but I can't remember which of those are available in the demo.

The "improvement" that immediately occurred to me was to ensure that the radial decouplers fire after the four tanks/engines around the core and before the engine on the bottom of the core.

Usually right. The more efficient solution would be to merge stages 2 and 3, firing all five engines from the start, but that works better once you get the hang of fuel lines.

But I was looking into this in more detail, and it seems her ship just has way too much thrust for its weight; it'll ascend so quickly that she's wasting most of her fuel just offsetting atmospheric drag. From the looks of it, her design has a thrust of 1060kN when all five engines are firing, or 860 for just the outer four, but its fully loaded weight is only ~210kN (21.3 tons); its thrust-to-weight ratio is therefore at least 4, and would be 5 if you linked the engines. You generally want to aim for the 2.2-2.3 range, so she could double the size of those side fuel tanks (adding 9 tons) and still have a TWR of 2.8ish at launch. That's the other reason I was suggesting the LV-909; she just doesn't need that much raw thrust, and using a smaller engine would save some weight and make the fuel last longer. The alternative is to throttle down until you get out of the lower atmosphere, which is basically what the Shuttle would do. (See also: "Max-Q".)

If you don't want to do the math, then do what I used to do, and go by benchmarks. At an altitude of 1000m, you want to be traveling at around 110m/s; any less and you're wasting too much fuel fighting gravity, any more and you're wasting too much fuel fighting drag. At 3000m, aim for 140m/s. At 6000m, it's 170m/s. (There's a table of these on the wiki.) Tell her to watch out for those numbers, and she'll know whether she is going too fast.

[Nikolai]

Usually right. The more efficient solution would be to merge stages 2 and 3, firing all five engines from the start, but that works better once you get the hang of fuel lines.

Well, yes, but we haven't gotten into a discussion about fuel lines (never mind going even further into more advanced strategies like asparagus staging) yet. I figured she didn't need them for getting a one-Kerbal capsule to orbit.

The alternative is to throttle down until you get out of the lower atmosphere, which is basically what the Shuttle would do.

... And that's exactly what she does; I recommended to her that she not go faster than about 200 m/s before getting above 11,000 meters or so. She understands in an intuitive way that it's a waste of fuel to try to go too fast too quickly (because you have to get more air out of your way). I'd describe TWR to her, but she's only just learning (integer) division and starting to get a handle on fractions.

I understand the technical details of what you're saying; in fact, working out those details is one of the reasons I love KSP (and even enjoyed technical details about rockets back before Windows -- excuse me, "MS-DOS Executive" -- even existed). But it's also rewarding to watch her try to develop a feel for it on her own, and a welcome challenge to try to break down information in a way that she can understand when she has questions. It's all worth it to see her sheer delight when something works the way she wants it to.

(Every once in a while, she likes to check on the progress of my Vall orbiting station, and I kind of get the sense that she's taking mental notes. She's perfectly content to work on understanding things in stages -- she has a drive to master things on her own -- but I have no idea what her ultimate goals might be. I'm looking forward to being surprised.)

[tstehler1]

*static* Future NASA astronaut located. Repeat: Future astronaut located. *static*

[nyrath]

Bravo Nikolai! Your daughter has given me hope for the new generation. She did it all by herself.

[Flymetothemun]

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.

~Schnip~

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.

~Klip~

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.

I might just try that design. See if An 8-YO is a better flier than MechJeb.

[togfox]

Great story. I reckon that craft is perfect just the way it is.

Thanks for sharing.

[Nikolai]

Bravo Nikolai!

I feel like I should be the one congratulating (and thanking!) you. I discovered your "Project Rho" website some years ago, and was inspired by your conversational and engaging writing to try to make basics of rocket science understandable to kids. Until KSP, I lacked the proper tools (I tried a few times to lead classes for older kids with model rockets with very limited success). In a sense, I hope that my daughter will teach me what I need to know before attempting to figure out how to reach broader audiences more effectively.

[nyrath]

She understands in an intuitive way that it's a waste of fuel to try to go too fast too quickly (because you have to get more air out of your way). I'd describe TWR to her, but she's only just learning (integer) division and starting to get a handle on fractions.

That's the reason KSP is worth its weight in gold. Without even noticing, your daughter is being taught to have an intuitive feel for astronautics, before she has even learned about fractions. She will be looked askance at by her friends and relatives when she starts talking about specific impulse and delta V. And that's a good thing.

It is just like Wil Wheaton said:

[nyrath]

I feel like I should be the one congratulating (and thanking!) you. I discovered your "Project Rho" website some years ago, and was inspired by your conversational and engaging writing to try to make basics of rocket science understandable to kids. Until KSP, I lacked the proper tools (I tried a few times to lead classes for older kids with model rockets with very limited success). In a sense, I hope that my daughter will teach me what I need to know before attempting to figure out how to reach broader audiences more effectively.

Thank you for your kind words.

But I still think that KSP does a far better job at rocket science education than my website will ever do.

Please keep up with your project, and take careful notes on what aids and what hinders your daughter's progress.

You saw this did you not?

http://imgur.com/a/sW3Tz

some students used KSP and some props to run a mission control simulation.

[Spatzimaus]

Without even noticing, your daughter is being taught to have an intuitive feel for astronautics, before she has even learned about fractions.

This is actually a big part of why universities require everyone to do so much physics (usually, one year of class and then also a lab); it's not about the material itself, but the thought processes that go along with it. I TA'd physics at Johns Hopkins, where nearly all of the students were pre-med of some kind, and they'd ask me why they had to take that lab. I had to explain to them that it wasn't about the physics itself; we were trying to teach them things like quantifying uncertainties, understanding how to use orders of magnitude, learning basic experimental procedure, and so on. The biggest skill we tried to teach was just the "wait, that can't be right" instinct; if I ask you how fast a car will be going after a collision, and your answer is faster than the speed of light, we want you to step back and say "wait, that can't be right" instead of just going along with whatever your calculator told you. That skill is useful in nearly any field; for doctors, it's about things like not misplacing the decimal point when prescribing a dosage to a patient.

So yes, an 8-year old developing an intuition for how things work instead of always going with the "obvious" answer, like boosting straight up or thrusting directly towards the thing you want to rendezvous with? That's incredibly valuable.

[Westo454]

Truly inspiring. Hope your eight year old has a great time. It might be good to get her a four function calculator to help her with the math while you're explaining it to her...

Although now would be a bad time to introduce the rocket equation to her.

[Splode]

Fantastic to see someone so young getting into this. That natural intuition will probably make her better than an actual astronaut! It's particularly good to see a girl showing so much interest, I'm always disappointed that engineering and space tend to be boy's clubs.

[Munstation]

All this work was done by Rareden, not by me just so you know, but let your daughter have a look at this.

More by Rareden Here.

[Flixxbeatz]

...and then one day you'll just find out that your daughter is now landing spacecrafts to another planet. Why hello there, future astronaut

[NeoMorph]

The beauty of KSP is that it has no boundaries regarding age. There is no violence (apart from crashing your poor rockets) and even when the Kerbals die there is no yuk and gore... they just go POOF!. Instead of killing an alien race we are helping them into space... so... they... can... INVADE US!!!!.... NOOOOOOOOO

Hehe... but truth be told, this game teaches you math (if you dig into the core) and even if you don't want to touch the math there are mods to help you out (ie protractor). YOU decide how much help you want. And it's actually a bonus for kids who want their parents to get them a really good PC.

"DAD, I need a new PC that has a lot of ram and a REALLY good graphics card because the program I want to run is for my science class"

"What is it you want to run, son?"

"It's called Kerbal Space Program. You have to design and build rockets and go explore this alien solar system and even NASA are tweeting about it."

"Oooh. That sounds really neat. I will have to check it out for myself though... Just to make sure it's suitable, of course."

"Sure Dad."

*Dad then goes out to buy two PC's... one for his son and one for himself to play KSP. Kid wins, Dad Wins... Mom... not so much*

[Tw1]

Just remember who started this when she plays kerbal instead of doing homework...

But then, maybe she's really organised, and I'm being all pessimistic.

[Gniuz]

I love threads full of win like this one. Well done to your daughter dude, give her a high five from me. My son is loving the game as well and he's only 6, he's not so much interested with the rockets as he is the planes.

G.

[Nikolai]

You saw this did you not?

http://imgur.com/a/sW3Tz

some students used KSP and some props to run a mission control simulation.

No, I didn't. That. Is. Awesome.

[Nikolai]

The biggest skill we tried to teach was just the "wait, that can't be right" instinct;

That reminds me of a story one of my favorite engineering professors told about going to see the great Dr. Richard Feynman give a lecture in freshman physics.

The lecture hall was one of those with all the blackboards up front, where you could scribble on one, then push it up on tracks and continue writing on another board behind it. He'd filled about six boards deriving some Newtonian physics equations and working through an example; when he got to the end, he said, "That's not right." He had enough intuition about what numbers communicate to know when he was getting the wrong message.

So he went back over his work. As he was trying to find the error, a student in the front row was frantically waving his hand and calling out, "Dr. Feynman! Dr. Feynman!"

Finally, exasperated, the physicist turned around to address the student. "What?!" he barked.

"Up there, on board number two -- you dropped a pi."

Feynman looked to where the student was pointing. "Hm. You're right." There was a pause. "You know what? F*** the pi." ... And he turned the lecture into how to know when you're getting it wrong, even if you're pretty sure you applied the right concepts and equations. I admired the man before that story, and even more so afterwards.

[Dolkramp]

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

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ANk8xlsp1pQ

[Nikolai]

It's particularly good to see a girl showing so much interest, I'm always disappointed that engineering and space tend to be boy's clubs.

Absolutely seconded.