Thanks to the folks at jundroo and my daughter’s 5th grade teacher (who mentioned this in her blog) I have a new addictive game to play. This is real rocket science, and it’s really fun!! The game is SimpleRockets. It gets 5 out of 5 rocket boosters on the aerospace geek scale.
You get to build your own rocket configurations from a healthy list of components. There is training that introduces you to fundamental concepts and terms for orbital mechanics, like apogees and retrograde burns. Then there are a lot of missions that you have to conduct. Many of them require you to design and build your rocket from scratch, to fit the mission. I have to say–it’s a blast!! (You probably saw that coming.)
The game is a free app for Apple devices. For Google play it isn’t unfortunately. More info and choices here at the game website:
http://jundroo.com/project/simplerockets/
There is also a leaderboard where you can see the top performance of people. I have no idea how some of those fast times to orbit were achieved…apparently you can build some ridiculously large rocket assemblies. But from what I can see, the orbital mechanics and physics of the game are excellent.
Let me give a thanks and shout out to the teacher who is another fantastic person to follow for all things STEM, kid-age maker movement, and educational toys. She is Terri Eichholz, a gifted & talented teacher for kids in grades K-5 in San Antonio, Texas. If you are a teacher or parent with kids in that age group (or I would add middle school) I enthusiastically recommend you learn from her. You’ll get more ideas and resources than you can possibly use. Many channels to choose from: Engage Their Minds blog, Twitter (@terrieichholz), or Pinterest (terrieichholz).
I found SimpleRockets in the App store for $1.99…
Hmm, was this on the Apple app store? There I found it free. For some other systems it has a cost. Please tell us where exactly you found it. Thanks.
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Thank you for excellent info I used to be in search of this information for my mission.
Thanks for your comment, and glad it was helpful to you!
Thank you for sharing this information so freely. You ought to think about writing a book.
You are very welcome! We need encourage and support kids more who have an interest and potential to do great things in all of the STEM fields.
As for the book, I did think about it. Then I did it. 🙂 You should be able to find it easily from this website. Perhaps you mean another one?