Dear SEP Families,
Students in Session 3 did a fine job of cooperating and communicating with each other, setting goals, and working incrementally to complete them. Kerbal Space Program has an aggressive learning curve, and overall the kids maintained their patience and good humor with themselves and each other. They experimented with a wide range of approaches and refined their designs based on the performance of both conventional and unorthodox platforms.
I was impressed with how quickly the class mastered the basics of orbital motion--the behavior of bodies in orbit is not always intuitive, and students adapted well to the peculiarities of the physics involved. They also worked out sensible procedures for atmospheric flight early on. The obvious, intuitive options tend to produce prohibitively severe drag effects in the lower atmosphere, but students sorted this out and changed their flight plans and rocket designs accordingly. Overall, the groups did well with the physics and its practical application.
The greater challenge was the "tyranny of the rocket equation," whereby finding that last hundred or so meters per second of change in velocity can demand dramatic increases in a rocket's size--or some clever manipulation of the flight plan. And as the rockets grow larger, they grow harder to control consistently. Stability issues were common, especially when dealing with unusually tall designs or models with off-axis thrust.
Students kept trying different approaches, either refining the larger designs or working upward from the basics again, and by the end of the session, three teams had designs that could attain a lunar transfer orbit consistently, and the fourth was making excellent progress. What matters, though, is that all four teams made improvements and learned something new every day, and they kept great attitudes throughout the entire process.
I had a fantastic time working with your students, and I hope they enjoy this last stretch of summer.
Students in Session 3 did a fine job of cooperating and communicating with each other, setting goals, and working incrementally to complete them. Kerbal Space Program has an aggressive learning curve, and overall the kids maintained their patience and good humor with themselves and each other. They experimented with a wide range of approaches and refined their designs based on the performance of both conventional and unorthodox platforms.
I was impressed with how quickly the class mastered the basics of orbital motion--the behavior of bodies in orbit is not always intuitive, and students adapted well to the peculiarities of the physics involved. They also worked out sensible procedures for atmospheric flight early on. The obvious, intuitive options tend to produce prohibitively severe drag effects in the lower atmosphere, but students sorted this out and changed their flight plans and rocket designs accordingly. Overall, the groups did well with the physics and its practical application.
The greater challenge was the "tyranny of the rocket equation," whereby finding that last hundred or so meters per second of change in velocity can demand dramatic increases in a rocket's size--or some clever manipulation of the flight plan. And as the rockets grow larger, they grow harder to control consistently. Stability issues were common, especially when dealing with unusually tall designs or models with off-axis thrust.
Students kept trying different approaches, either refining the larger designs or working upward from the basics again, and by the end of the session, three teams had designs that could attain a lunar transfer orbit consistently, and the fourth was making excellent progress. What matters, though, is that all four teams made improvements and learned something new every day, and they kept great attitudes throughout the entire process.
I had a fantastic time working with your students, and I hope they enjoy this last stretch of summer.
Resources for Continued Learning
Books:
Websites:
Conceptually relevant videos:
Energy and Engineering:
Thank you for being a part of SEP 2016 Session 3!
- Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey
- Arthur C. Clarke, Interplanetary Flight: An Introduction to Astronautics
- Jules Verne, From the Earth to the Moon
Websites:
- kerbalspaceprogram.com
- hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/hframe.html
- nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/index.html
Conceptually relevant videos:
Energy and Engineering:
- www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RjJtO51ykY (YouTube—title “Easy Pinewood Derby Car Wins Using Science”)
- www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsnyl8llfH4 (YouTube—title “1st Place Egg Drop Project Ideas—Using Science”)
- www.youtube.com/watch?v=qT2sN7Oe7JA (YouTube—title “Apollo 11: "As it happened LIVE on ABC", Launch and TLI, July 16-19,1969, PART.1”)
- www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-Vd75Ptg9I (YouTube—title “Apollo 15 Splashdown”)
Thank you for being a part of SEP 2016 Session 3!
