SmartKids Blog » Fun Science

Fun Educational Software!

Fred Alger — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 02:33:01 +0000

Can computer games teach science? Well, if the game is Kerbal Space Program, which involves building and piloting a rocket into space, the answer’s a resounding YES!

It starts off simple: build a rocket, put 3 little green guys in a capsule on top and hit the launch button. These little fellows live on a blue-green planet called Kerbin. It looks very Earth-like, but it’s about 1/10th the radius of Earth. Just like the Earth, Kerbin has a single moon, which the Kerbals call “Mun.”

The tutorial will take your intrepid spacefarers up to about 7km, but you’ll have to make it to at least 70km for a stable orbit. When in doubt, add more rockets! And see some of the most hilarious and cringe-worthy rocketry failures as you tweak your design.

The controls are simple and fun, and we found ourselves going to Wikipedia to look up real rocketry data just to try to get those little guys in orbit. It’s harder than it looks!

The free demo should provide hours of entertainment and learning, and it’s worth a look:

• Kerbal Space Program
• Basic principles of orbiting Earth
• “Gravity Turn” a useful maneuver for getting rockets up to orbital velocity.
• In order to stably orbit Earth, you need to clear the Mesosphere

Curiosity Rover Sends back 360° panorama

Fred Alger — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 03:02:32 +0000

You may have heard this week that NASA’s Curiosity Rover has landed safely on Mars. This is an amazing achievement for science! The rover itself is as large as an SUV and 15 times heavier than any rover sent to Mars. It carries a battery of scientific instruments to test the Martian soil and atmosphere. Back on Earth, scientists will stay busy for months analyzing and interpreting the new data. Findings from this mission may even pave the way for future human settlement on Mars!

Today NASA received the first panorama of Curiosity’s landing site. See the Press Release, and then Have a look for yourself at the surface of Mars! »

Fun Science: Turning the Higgs data into Music!

Fred Alger — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 22:13:05 +0000

So there’s been a lot of talk in the news lately about the Higgs Particle and what it might mean for the standard model of particle physics. But did you know that it sounds like Latin Dance music? Some clever researchers mapped some regularities in the data into musical notes and produced a rather catchy little tune:

Click for Audio Clip

-then-

Head on over to Discovery News to check out the full story.