Kerbal Space Program

Kerbal Space Program In School

Our Own Minecraft-Like Space Program In School?

Our 7th graders have a new science project where they will be creating their own space program, a la NASA.  Kerbal Space Program (KSP) is has been getting rave reviews and is favorably compared to other huge sandbox game Minecraft–but in space.  Like MinecraftEDU, we will be using is KerbalEDU.

Kerbal, is a pretty sophisticated game as the players will need to learn how to build functional spaceships and be able to learn how to fly them by practicing real world flying concepts and phyiscs of  pitch, yaw and need to consider gravity, wind and more. I played it a few weeks ago and it can get frustrating.  Yet, the allure of going to space is the main goal of this game so you can’t help but keep trying, tweaking and improving your spaceship designs.

Student Experts

I personally don’t play video games much, but I obviously see the incredible power of  it in classrooms.  The thought of “video games” can be misconstrued as just mindless activities, so I like to call games like these, simulations.  As I’m new to Kerbal, I requested one of our 8th graders, who is an avid Kerbal player, to create the tutorial video above for the 7th graders.  I’m really excited about this concept of finding students who are experts in their interests and be able to teach and give tips to others!  Love the each one, teach one thing.

KSP Wiki

This wiki has a lot of great information on Kerbal.

Lesson One: Training

We will get to know how to use the interface of KSP.  Look at the Settings menu and check out the Input for how to use the keys and ouse. Then follow the Training module and learn the Construction Basics.

Kerbal TrainingKerbal TrainingKerbal Training

 

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