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KSP in a High School Physics Class

FizziksGuy

By FizziksGuy
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FizziksGuy

FizziksGuy

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Thanks! when I get home from school I'll post some stuff. Can I upload .crafts?

I'm not sure if it will let you upload .crafts or not... will be interesting to find out. I'm thinking in general, though, that they're probably better off struggling through the building of their own rockets / stations / etc. You could link to them on another site if they're posted elsewhere, though. Thanks for the great feedback!

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FizziksGuy

FizziksGuy

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If you're still taking study aids to suggest for independent study, you might want to direct your students over to The Drawing Board. I've been maintaining a directory for tutorials and other useful resources so that players both new and experienced can quickly and conveniently find the information they need. I'd also highly recommend Winchell Chung's Atomic Rockets page (which is already listed in the Drawing Board, but is good enough in my mind to mention twice), which has a wealth of information and ideas for spacecraft derived from both real-world rocket science and classic science fiction.

Thanks, I've added a link to The Drawing Board on the resources portion of our project page. Tons of great stuff for the kids (and myself) to devour!

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musicpenguin

musicpenguin

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Moho: + 200,000$ for inspecting holes

Kerbin: 25,000$ per easteregg. +50,000 for ufo

Mun: +25,000 per easteregg

Minmus: + 25,000 for finding the one.

Duna: +100,000 per easteregg.

Ike: +150,000$ for magic boulder

Vall: + 200,000$ for easteregg

Tylo: +100,000$

Bop: + 500,00$ for discovering space kraken (life!)

Heres all the eastereggs. You can re-arrange the prices as you see fit.

http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/List_of_easter_eggs

(Spoilers!)

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FizziksGuy

FizziksGuy

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could start introducing the easter eggs by suggesting there's a reward for finding the site of Apollo 11's landing. Might encourage some of their own research into earths space history to find out where it was

I love it!

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Alex6511

Alex6511

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High School student here (although I graduate next week).

Are you going to let them use mechjeb or anything like that? Some people might be very good with the math, but may not be good mechanically. A properly setup mechjeb custom window (Or another addon, who cares really) could probably really help those students.

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Barklight

Barklight

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High School student here (although I graduate next week).

Are you going to let them use mechjeb or anything like that? Some people might be very good with the math, but may not be good mechanically. A properly setup mechjeb custom window (Or another addon, who cares really) could probably really help those students.

I'd lean towards no on the use of mechjeb. Sure, it's a fantastic tool and it saves time, but the built-in functions allow you to completely automate everything this course is trying to teach just with the built in functions. Same goes for HydroTech RCS Autopilot and the ORDA mods as they make rendezvous and docking basically hands-free.

A tool like Protractor, or maybe Flight Engineer, is more informational and simply supplies information that they can use for better calculations.

All that being said, in a teaching / classroom environment, I think that running stock / no mods will be the best learning experience for these kids. They'll develop skills that they'd be hard pressed to learn when having access to an autopilot at any given time. Skills that many of us who got tired of manual launches take for granted or simply ignore these days :P

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FizziksGuy

FizziksGuy

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Are you going to let them use mechjeb or anything like that? Some people might be very good with the math, but may not be good mechanically. A properly setup mechjeb custom window (Or another addon, who cares really) could probably really help those students.

Much as I'd like to, it was already a huge undertaking to get the game set up on our classroom computers, allow the students access to the Screenshots folders (an ongoing issue), etc. I'm pretty certain I'd be pushing my luck by trying to get our IT folks to install modifications. Good thought, though!

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Alex6511

Alex6511

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Much as I'd like to, it was already a huge undertaking to get the game set up on our classroom computers, allow the students access to the Screenshots folders (an ongoing issue), etc. I'm pretty certain I'd be pushing my luck by trying to get our IT folks to install modifications. Good thought, though!

Yeah, the IT guy (yes, single guy, big school, Florida budget for you) would never allow something like this, so thats understandable.

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Guest

Guest

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I just registered under the same name. Said you needed to confirm registrations so I am here to confirm as a member of this site. :D

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Lord_daedra

Lord_daedra

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It seems that thee youtube Video got taken down on the main page, EMI dont know how a Music company got Video taken down as well... given that means they claimed the rights to KSP to take down the video.

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Ditchbuster

Ditchbuster

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Im having a little trouble with your forums. Does each company/team have a different thread or are they breaking up the missions too. Coming in late here I am trying to read the reports and can't always tell if they just havent launched or didn't report yet or if it might be somewhere else on the forum.

Is the class once a week or everyday? that would explain things not being updated yet.

Ill continue reading :)

Edited by Ditchbuster
figured out school isnt over
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rodion_herrera

rodion_herrera

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Although I'm not a physics teacher, around 10 years ago, back when I was a lab tech in a local university, I actually recommended Orbiter to some physics instructors. Some of them did introduce Orbiter to their classes, but they themselves told me that the learning curve was too steep for the students, so most didn't really bother to try it out. So now I am wishing that KSP was around back then, perhaps it would have been more accepted by the college kids due to its fun factor. Now I teach basic astronomy to elementary and high school kids, so I really aim to use KSP in some presentations to explain some basic principles in spaceflight and space exploration.

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Ditchbuster

Ditchbuster

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I really like how you have the teams have different perks and you can tell you know them with the descriptions of the companies.

I saw a lot of teams had the problem with premature staging. Might let them know about Alt-L locking the stage. just remember to turn it back off!

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Thrombo

Thrombo

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Great idea, though I think the rewards are a bit off, myself. Also I'll pose some food for thought on defining them.

* I think you should define EVA as being in orbit, or with some clearer mission, or something. EVA is just defined as being extra-vehicular and technically can happen safely on the ground. If I was a clever student, I'd do that first. ;)

* What differentiates a space station from a satellite? Kerbals living in the unit?

* I think the Mun is considerably easier to land on properly than Minmus without the assistance of an external tool (MechJeb) due to Minmus' difference in orbital inclination. I would think Minmus is a good launching point to teach how to match orbital inclinations by burning at orbital nodes.

* I think it would be cool to have a reward for a geosync orbit.

* If you're going to have a reward for Hohmann transfers, why not also include bi-elliptic transfers?

* Exploration milestones to land on planets are neat. How about milestones to do manned missions to the planets, since per your requirements, it would necessitate a return voyage to get Kerbals safely home? It's _considerably_ harder to get a Kerbal back from Eve than to Eve, and I think it'd be a nifty instrument to illustrate the difficulties of landing on real planets (getting the fuel there).

* It would be cool, I think, if you somehow incorporated a direct competition to see which team could get a Kerbal to XYZ location and back using the lowest quantity of fuel (idea here being to teach gravity assist and possibly aerobraking).

Just my 2c. :)

Edit: reading through the rest of the thread, it looks like your project already started! Best of luck!

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Windchild

Windchild

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I'm wondering if I could get the teacher to do a similar project with my class at the end of next year...

It would be very interesting. (and funny watching my classmates fail while I succeed! :cool:)

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Nicoli

Nicoli

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While a lot of people have said no mods, I would highly suggest getting the ISA mapsat mod added. Allows you to set some realistic goals of Mapping moons and planets. You can have the kids calculate an orbit with a period different then the rotational period and explain why that is important. Also allows you to be much more generic with your exploration goals while at the same time allowing for the students to be more likely to find the anomalies. For example say 50,000 for doing a full map of Mun, and 200,000 for the first team to post on your forum a screenshot of them at the anomaly.

Overall love to see teachers doing this sort of thing, Good job.

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