Building A Realistic Satellite Building App
Simulated Space ‘Terror’ Offers NASA an Online Following, New York Times
“As part of the educational program for the James Webb Space Telescope, the planned successor to Hubble that has been troubled by delays and cost overruns, NASA created a game in which players create their own space telescope, but to underwhelming reviews. “Too bad this game is not totally realistic so as to let people play with schedule and cost,” wrote Keith Cowing, a frequent critic of the space agency, on his Web site NASAWatch.com. “This way they’d REALLY learn how NASA satellites are built (or not built).”
Build It Yourself: Satellite! Game, NASA
I tried the game and found it to be lacking… When it succeeds it shows you that it’s already been done, when it fails it just says “your satellite is a mess – try again”
Now, I have had a lot of success using “Marsbound! Mission to the Red Planet”, a card-based game developed at Arizona State with JPL. As part of a STEP program with 7th graders, I wanted them to experience the design process. I gave each group a randomly selected amount of science they needed to complete (by rolling 3d6), and had them come up with the design. They had to trade the science vs. weight vs. reliability to make the system work. We didn’t have time to constrain things by cost, but the system allows you to do that also.
The kids really enjoyed it and it gave a surprisingly realistic experience in balancing competing and often contradictory requirements.