Spaceflight Games

You may be wondering whether playing video games counts as education. Well, it does - especially on Mars. During your mission and if you were living on a Martian settlement, you would be interfacing with a great number of computers to do jobs for you. This requires not only knowledge of the physical laws at play, but also hand eye coordination when using remote equipment. This lab represents that challenge.

You and your partner will not necessarily be working together constantly, as some games you will not be able to play at the same time, but you should ask each other questions and try to problem solve together before asking a teacher for help.

Try your hand at each of these games in any order:

• Toy Sight
• Lunar Lander*
• Gravity Game*
• Earth Orbiter*

The games with an asterisk can be accessed online from my Favorite Links page at http://seattlegirlsschool.org/community/mcallahan

Homework:

Part1: Choose at least two games upon which to reflect. Which was the most challenging? Why? Did you have any skills that were particularly helpful in any of the games? What previous knowledge could you apply as you played?

Part 2: Find out how flying on Mars would be different than on Earth. Pertinent topics include acceleration due to gravity and atmospheric conditions.