Hello Troops,
The following pictures and text came to The Troubadour's headquarters by way of subspace radio from Admiral William Schuler. Admiral Schuler was a well known fixture in the USS Voyager. Many an overnight camp crew suffered during his grueling bridge inspections.
"What is this?!" the Admiral would growl into the face of the Voyager's overwhelmed 12 year old captain while pointing to a bit of hardly noticeable fluff on the carpet below his boot. "I almost tripped over it!"
"I, I, I, don't see anything Sir." Of course the poor Captain couldn't see anything. He had instructions to stare straight ahead while standing at attention during a Bridge inspection.
The Admiral would press his complaint even further. "How could you miss this deadly obstacle?" The Admiral would stoop down and collect the contraband on the tip of his finger and show the Captain.
The behind the scenes staff and volunteers would laugh and laugh at the misery Admiral Schuler put our crews through as they desperately did his bidding so the ship could launch from Starbase and head out on its mission.
Ahh, good times.
Mr. W.
Items recently discovered in Admiral Schuler's (retired) now
declassified security files shows us some interesting things that have
taken place on Federations vessels over the last 20 some odd years. No
doubt the admiral wished these files had stayed buried forever.
An image of the extremely rare Homo Sapians Grumpus
An even rarer image of Homo Sapian Grumus smiling
Did the Admiral really put this command crew in charge of a multi billion credit starship?
Ever vigilant
Admiral Schuler was not available for comment at this time, it seems an investigation is in order
Yanos Greeley
Federation Wire Service
News from Dream Flight Adventures, our sister Space
Center in Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania Elementary School Launches Class-Sized Immersive Simulator
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 03/14/13
An elementary school in Pennsylvania will shortly be immersing their
students in a real-life "Magic School Bus" to help them learn science,
technology, engineering, and math (STEM) topics, along with critical
thinking, problem solving, and teamwork.
Shaler Area Elementary School in Glenshaw is applying an $80,000 grant to work with
Dream Flight Adventure
in converting a classroom into the "IKS Titan," an interactive learning
environment that uses iPads, a Promethean board, a projector, and other
technology.
Described by Dream Flight Adventures Director Gary Gardiner as "part
simulator, part game, and part theater," the environment allows students
to be "sent" on missions created by the school's teachers. The missions
involve history, literature, and the humanities along with STEM
concepts, to explore outer space, undersea voyages, or trips to the
past. Each student will play a role: captain, first officer, pilot,
biologist, physicist, engineer, hacker, or one of seven other stations.
The simulator can support groups of four to 16 players at a time.
| | 
Shaler Area Elementary School's IKS Titan will allow groups of four to 16 students to complete cross-curricular missions. | |
During regular classes and for special projects, groups of students
will climb into the simulator and learn how to operate the technology
controls to apply that knowledge in pursuit of their mission. Each
player has a specific station with several tasks. Then they come
together to work as a team to accomplish the mission.
"Shaler Area School District has committed itself to
interdisciplinary learning and development of 21st Century skills among
our students, and Dream Flight Adventures will be instrumental in taking
this effort to the next level," said Superintendent of Schools Wes
Shipley.
"It's the ultimate cross-curricular activity," added Math and Science Teacher Joe Malloy.
Funding was provided by the
Grable Foundation.
The first group of test pilots will be students participating in
Shaler's Gifted and Talented Education program. From there, usage will
expand to all students in fourth through sixth grade.
"The IKS Titan classroom simulator makes learning fun and memorable
and inspires students to develop greater knowledge and skills in STEM,
the arts, and humanities," noted Principal Cindy Foht. "We're excited
because the students are excited."
The IKS Titan takes off on its maiden voyage on March 20, 2013.
vania-elementary-school-launches-class-sized-immersive-simulator.aspx#DVljpzOEr66l8h7K.99
With the help of a simulator, Shaler students can now explore outer space
By Mary Niederberger / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Shaler Area fifth-grader Trapper Crain was the captain of a
recent mission back in time in an underwater vehicle with a crew of 15
classmates who attempted to intervene in the fatal torpedo attack of the
luxury ocean liner the Lusitania
.
The crew battled alien forces,
some in the form of U-boats, others resembling ocean creatures such as
giant squids. Some of the alien forces were attempting to alter the
course of history by blocking the attack, which led to the sinking of
the Lusitania, resulting in the loss of nearly 1,200 lives and prompting
the United States to enter World War I.
The students took their
virtual trip back in time via the Dream Flight Adventures classroom
simulator, which was recently created at Shaler Area Elementary School
with an $80,000 grant from the Grable Foundation.
While the Shaler
crew was busy fighting the external forces under the virtual ocean, it
was experiencing an internal battle as well. Crew members wavered
between trying to save the lives of those aboard the Lusitania by
blocking its attack, or allowing history to repeat and maintain itself.
They knew from previous classroom discussions that if the ship did not
sink, the U.S. may not have entered World War I and the course of
history could be completely different.
In the end, Trapper made a
decision based solely on the safety of his crew. He called for a retreat
from the enemies because it was too risky for his ship to venture past
them. But it meant that the Lusitania sunk once again just as it had May
7, 1915, off the coast of Ireland.
Trapper's classmate Isabella
James said when the group embarked on the Lusitania mission it planned
to allow the ship to sink and preserve history. "But then we had second
thoughts," she said.
But as the students tried to intervene, a
giant squid threatened. "We called the captain and he said, 'Just get
away from the squid,' " said Isabella, a pilot on the mission.
"We left history as it should be," said Michael Bly, her classmate and co-pilot.
The
simulator is the brainchild of Gary Gardiner of Regent Square, who has
had the idea of creating a simulator for students since he was young and
attended a space camp in Utah that provided a similar experience. Mr.
Gardiner produced the software used by the simulator and he presented
the idea at a meeting of school district officials at the Allegheny
Intermediate Unit last year.
His idea caught the fancy of Kara
Eckert, assistant to the superintendent in the Shaler Area School
District. Mr. Gardiner and Ms. Eckert made a grant proposal to the
Grable Foundation and when the money came through, they worked with
Michael Penn, a teacher for the gifted and talented program at Shaler
Elementary, on creating adventures based on the district's curriculum.
They also worked with district carpenter Robert Gasowski on the physical
construction of the simulator.
The Shaler simulator is the first
to be built based on Mr. Gardiner's design. It is housed in a former
classroom that has been divided into three areas, the largest of which
is the simulator. There is also a "staging area" outside of the
simulator where students sit and listen to directions before a mission
and a small control area behind the simulator where Mr. Penn watches the
students via cameras as they perform their duties and creates reactions
to some of the decisions they make.
The missions use skills and
concepts from across the curriculum including social studies, history,
language arts, math and science, Mr. Penn said. But they also
teach nonacademic skills such as teamwork, decision-making and
higher-order thinking skills and prompt discussions on such topics as
political ideology and ethics. Mr. Penn said he and Mr. Gardiner are at
work on other missions based on the district's curriculum.
While
Shaler Area Elementary School houses students in grades 4-6, plans call
for the simulator to be used by other grade levels, including high
school. The adventures will be modified to use grade-level math and
science and other course material, Mr. Penn said. Inside the
simulator, where it is usually dark during the missions, the adventure
is projected on a large screen in front. There are 16 stations with
various jobs attached. Students perform their duties on iPads that are
embedded in the station desk. They study and practice the
responsibilities of each station before participating in missions. For
each mission, students construct a hypothesis, test it during the
experiment and then analyze the results.
In addition to the
Lusitania mission, three other adventures are available. The "Pandemic"
adventure involves a delegate who falls seriously ill while attending
peace negotiations between two civilizations that have been separated
for hundreds of years. In the simulator, students "shrink" their vessel
to a size small enough to enter the blood stream, which requires
knowledge of fractions.
"They have to understand the proportions, but -- more than understand -- they have to apply the principle," Mr. Penn said.
Once
the vessel is inside the body, it travels through its systems to search
for the disease, develop a cure and stop the plague before it spreads.
The goal of the mission is to save lives and to remove any doubt between
the two civilizations about the possibility of germ warfare.
The
"Succession" adventure has the students involved in rescuing an oracle
who is responsible for naming a new king and restoring order to her
fictitious homeland, and the "Insurrection" mission uses an interstellar
empire and a fight over algae biofuels to reflect a battle similar to
the American Revolution
"I've learned a lot about eye-hand
coordination and about angles and it's the first time I've used an iPad
at school," said Mia Fantozzi, 11.
Classmate Mara Gillespie, also
11, wasn't as specific about what she learned during the mission, but
she wasn't lacking enthusiasm for the simulator. "It's really cool," she
said.
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