KinderStation ( 9yr old daughter's science project)

[Northlandsplasher]

Hello all,

So this is the start of documenting my daughter's project for school, as stated she's 9 yrs old and fairly advanced for her age. I introduced her to KSP in January of this year and she's been "helping" ever since LOL. She has started in a different school this year and has been given permission to use KSP for science class gotta love a school that actually embraces technology! This school has a 3 day in building / 2 day at home week which I feel will help her and the rest of the students in preparing for a job market where working from home will be as common as going into the office.

I'll step off my soapbox of overly proud daddy now LOL.

We have been discussing our options for what kind of "project" to make and have decided to go with a ISS style station. I will be compiling a list of mods used and posting screen shots with each launch. I do realize some community members prefer a more manual approach to spaceflight and orbital mechanics but, considering her age and mine LOL , we will be using MechJeb, HyperEdit, and Editor Extensions for certain stages of this project.

Please return soon for further updates.

[lukaszett]

What has she done so far in KSP?

Defenitely an interesting project.

[Scotius]

Cool. Do share the news

[Kerbal01]

Do share!(10char)

[Astraph]

Good luck with this! Its so nice to see the younger generation getting sucked into this wonderful game

[Kerbal01]

You should use ORDA for docking the different segmets together, since your hacking your crafts into orbit anyway.

[Marshmallow_Man]

Keep us posted! I wanna see what she creates

I lol'd at "I'll step off my soapbox of overly proud daddy now LOL."

[Northlandsplasher]

Hey all, thanks for the quick replies.

So didn't get a chance to get KSP fired up for screenies this evening, sorry homework for her and misc dad duties for me, but have put together a list of mods being used for this adventure.

I've trimmed parts from the mods to free up memory so was able to get a bit larger list;

Advanced Service Module and Service Module

AIES Aerospace

AlchemyTechnologies Modular Girder

Bill-Jeb 9000

Bio Fuels

Crew Manifest

Dragon Command Module

FusTek Station Parts Expansion

ISS Community Modules

JAFR_THSS 2.0

KAS

Kosmos SSPP

KSP Interstellar v0.5

Magic Smoke Industries

Orbital Construction

OrdanIndustries Telescope

Procedural Fairings

Radiators by ZZZ

RemoteTech

ReStock

RLA RTG and RCS system

Romfarer Lazor Cam and Arms

Soviet Pack

Space Junk Bay

Stretchy Tanks

BTW, we aren't using hyperedit to hack to orbit, actually have only used the resource refill option and then only we the craft would be lost otherwise

I'll see what I can do about getting some screen shots done tomorrow.

[Kyarao]

Make it all science-y! Have her record things like mass, fuel levels, engine thrust, atmosphere density and so on.

It's only recording numbers. You can do all the difficult science that comes with parsing data. It'll be a good introduction to the Scientific Method!

[suzin.felipe]

This is awesome mate. God luck for you and your daughter in this join project.

Just remember to keep it fun, we adults tend to suck fun out of things for kids if we are not careful.

[UH60guy]

She may be able to do a little math with the project too, such as using the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation. It doesn't need any calculus, just a calculator with the natural log (ln) key and maybe a little counting of parts she installs. She could compare actual (game) vs predicted delta V of a rocket. Delta V = Ve * ln (m0 / m1).

Translated/simplified: Change in velocity of the rocket measured at nav ball = exhaust velocity multiplied by the natural log of (inital mass of everything divided by mass without fuel)

KSP provides you with ISP for each engine- and you can get the exhaust velocity from the equiation Ve = Isp * gravity

[seanth]

Hey all, thanks for the quick replies.

So didn't get a chance to get KSP fired up for screenies this evening, sorry homework for her and misc dad duties for me, but have put together a list of mods being used for this adventure.

I've trimmed parts from the mods to free up memory so was able to get a bit larger list;

Advanced Service Module and Service Module

AIES Aerospace

AlchemyTechnologies Modular Girder

Bill-Jeb 9000

Bio Fuels

Maybe have her do some research to explain what is biologically wrong with how the Bio Fuels mod works? Plants not only produce O2, but use it to stay alive (just like animals). So plants do light+CO2+water-->sugar+O2, but they also do sugar+O2-->CO2+energy. They produce more O2 than CO2 in the light, but in the dark, they consume O2. This can then lead to discussions of endosymbiosis and the organelles in plants and/or animals.

Oh, and how it would be hand to convert real biomass into a noble gas (xenon)

You can put this into perspective of a space mission by talking about eclipses, deep space missions, or slow orbits around a big gas giant (and then you and she can watch "Silent Running" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Running).

[Northlandsplasher]

WOW! you guys are great I've been sharing your replies with my little one and she is very excited about getting this up and running.

UH60guy - thank you so much first time I've seen calc. explained on a kid's level! We will be using this info from you for sure!

seanth - great idea for a second part of this project, though it might end up being used sooner, I spoke with her teacher and was invited to put together a Show & Tell type guest visit. Which I think your idea about life sciences might be easier than jumping right into orbital mechanics n such. The classroom is a shared 3rd & 4th grade so I have to make sure I don't push too much at them LOL

btw have seen Silent Running several times and will be watching it again soon with my girl is a great movie on many levels.

suzin.felipe - heh my wife told me the exact same thing. I will take such advice to heart.

Once again I Thank all of you who have taken time to stop by here with your ideas and encouragement. This project will be taking place over the entire school year so at times we might not post for a week or so depending on what kind of achievements and/or milestones we reach.

[UH60guy]

Best of luck with everything! I fully admit I haven't tried out the calculations myself, but I expect they'd be close. You'd have to be sure to try it on a single stage rocket (staging gets a little more complicated, but doable with the same equation) in a vacuum or in a situation where gravity effects aren't messing with the actual change in velocity measured to keep it simple. I bet launching vertically from Gilly or Minmus would be a perfect test bed as you have no atmospheric drag, gravity is minimal, and a vertical launch would put all the velocity in one direction for the experiment, reducing the amount she would lose to circularizing and pilot inputs. Though, she might be able to explain the difference between predicted and actual as such losses.

If nothing else, it should match the delta V values MechJeb predicts for the rocket. As the proud parent of a budding rocket scientist, you might be able to set it up, have her do the one equation, and see "reality" match up with math. I really look forward to hearing more about it- I'm about to be a parent (in a month!) and I'd love to do such things with my kid. Wish this was around when I was younger.

If you're really brave for a long term project, you could have her recreate the interior of the space station out of some cardboard boxes or the like, and play the game from inside Might make the EVA experience a fun and imaginative diversion where she could learn about that sort of thing from some NASA footage.

Edited September 24, 2013 by UH60guy

[seanth]

Another idea: use a high quality map of Kerbin to talk about geography/geology. My son is learning about various land forms and we're using a map of Kerbin to identify and label various land forms. https://github.com/seanth/Kerbin-map

[Technical Ben]

PS, don't watch Silent Running as a kid. I did, sad and pointless ending.

If I was on a space ship, I'd show those robots who is boss.

[AceofPengwins]

What format is that map in seanth?

[seanth]

What format is that map in seanth?

That one is Photoshop. I'll put a png up in a minute.

Edit: ok. png is up.

Edited September 24, 2013 by seanth

[Northlandsplasher]

Just a quick update today.

Sorry for taking so long but we've developed a problem here, my main computer is either possessed (LOL) or my motherboard is on its' way to the great digital haven sigh... So far every time we get things moving along my computer literally shuts off..not a reboot! I've replaced the heat sink, power supply, and redid the thermal paste on the CPU. Also cleaned everything, twice, and closely inspected everything for bad components, used bright light and magnifier. No joy

So at this time we will continue to make plans for this project but the execution will have to wait until sometime around tax season(if I'm lucky).

I would like Thank all of you who have given us your encouragement and offers of help, we will be back on this it will just take some time.