The Troubadour: 04/01/2017

South Jordan's Early Light Academy Building Two Starship Simulators

Early Light Academy. South Jordan, Utah

Early Light Academy is a K-9 public charter school located in South Jordan, Utah. The school's philosophy is posted on their web site.

"Taking our students from the stone age to the space age..." isn't a catching slogan when you're building two Voyager inspired starship simulators powered by InfiniD.

A member of Renaissance Academy's Farpoint Voyager Club is a student at Early Light and was kind enough to take a few pictures for The Troubadour detailing the construction already underway. The two simulators will sit back to back much like the two ships at Canyon Grove and Lakeview Academies.

As true of most simulators inspired by the original USS Voyager, these two new simulators will have dark room revolving doors as entrances. The doors came from the closed simulators at Stonegate in Pleasant Grove. It's good to see them back in use.

The ships will be a little larger than the USS Odyssey at the CMSEC; each capable of taking between 12 and 15 students.

Early Light Academy had a large multipurpose classroom reserved for an InfiniD computer / simulator lab. But after seeing how effective simulator based experiential learning can be using the InfiniD system, the school's board of directors decided to build dedicated simulators instead.

Nathan King was one of the driving forces behind the decision to build the two ships. Nathan is the new director of the Lakeview Academy Space Education Center in Saratoga Springs having recently replace Brandon Wright.

The two simulators will be part of the InfiniD family of learning centers - using InfiniD software and curriculum.

As of today there are three Voyager inspired simulators under construction as listed in the Voyager Network Directory (click on the directory link at the top of the blog's right sidebar).

• IKS Niagara . A new Dream Flight Adventures simulator located in the Frazier School District in Perryopolis, PA. Under Construction.

• Starship I: Early Light Academy, South Jordan, Utah. Under Construction

• Starship II: Early Light Academy, South Jordan, Utah. Under Construction

Telos Discovery Space Center Logo Creation Contest

Telos Discovery Space Center is showcasing new logo submissions from a contest recently held. Here are three. Which one is your favorite? Give your opinion on their Facebook page.

Blast Posts from the Past. August 2000

Another of The Troubadours reposts from Space Center history. Today's reposts come from August 2000. Mentioned are Soren Seibach, Stephen Porter, Bryson Lystrup, Landon Hemsley, Dave Wall, Davide Merrell, Mr. Daymont, and Wayne Sandholtz.

Hello Voyagers!

Once again a successful overnight missions complete. This mission was composed of a group of Junior High students that are  members of a rocket club and the general public. All the ships were used. I'm happy to report that Soren Seibach was Lord of the  Votes for this mission with Stephen and Bryson coming in closely behind.

Stephen and Landon were both assigned to this mission. As many of you are aware they have been battling it out in this egroup lately  until I stopped approving their posts. I was concerned the argument would continue once they arrived. I'm happy to say that both  are friends and the battle was never meant to be serious. Both are stubborn and enjoy rattling each other cages.

Here are some of the comments the students left us on their surveys:

1. Its real and it is challenging and fun
2. Its realistic and its fun being able to act like I am really in space.
3. The stories were good and complicated.
4. You learn leadership skills and how to make the right choice at a critical moment.
5. Hard, fun, really cool.
6. I like Star Trek
7. I love everything here. It's so cool and fun!
8. You can't do anything to improve it!
9. It's just plain fun.
10. The kids are in charge and there are volunteers to help if you need it. It felt like it was real.
11. I love how you make it seem so real. It's fun to act, plus it makes you think. I had a great time. Loved the uniforms and the air conditioning.
12. Its really cool how the ships seem so reals and you need to figure out problems.

At 2:00 A.M I was woken up by three quick power surges and then the power went out. Thank heavens we weren't running a  mission. The school went black. This place can get really dark. The beeps started from the Voyager's carbon monoxide alarm. I had to track that down and turn it off. The lights came back on at 3:32 A.M.

Well, the school year starts Monday. Thanks to all for a great summer. Volunteers and staff make sure you get your September requests in.

All the Best My Friends!
Mr. Williamson

DEATH MUSIC.

I like the death music at the space centre. I like how every Flight Director has a different style. Mr. Wall likes to play things from Spock, such as "Doctor! Doctor! Dctor McCoy!" Mr.
Williamson once played "back in the saddle again". I don't know how the death music goes on the Magellan -- from lack of experience. haha. However, when and if I ever work at the Space Centre, I will revolutionise the Odyssey and its death music. You see, Mr. Daymont, David M, and others who run the Odyssey are FAR from equal to Mr. Wall when it comes to style and quality. It's just not the same. The first odyssey mission I work, I'm going to bring an aquabats cd and when the crew dies they will hear the random and spasmodic lines of "Super Rad!" Hey maybe I can make my own ska band! Who wants to be in my ska band? list name, ph#, and the instrument. No Kazoos.

Wayne Sandholtz

Theater Imaginarium
The best gifs of the week edited for a general audience.

More Posts from the Past. August 2000. Mentioned in This Post: Brian Hawkins, Metta Smith, Kevin Anderson, Stephen Porter, Rick Cowdell

August 14, 2000

SPACE CENTER FIELD TRIP PARENT NOTE

Where: Field trip to Hill Air Force Base and Lagoon
When: August 17th.
Depart: Central Elementary School August 17th at 8:00 A.M. (participants should arrive at the school by 7:45 A.M.)
Return: Central Elementary School August 17th at 9:30 P.M.
Cost: $10.00 to $25.00 depend on the amount of hours you worked during the summer.
What to Bring: Money, This form signed, a sack lunch or money for lunch, swim suit and towel (if you what to swim at Lagoona
Beach)

Parents,
This form is required so your child may attend our Hill Air Force Base/Lagoon End of the Summer Field Trip. The price includes the school district bus, entrance to Lagoon and Laguna Beach, and an all you can eat supper of 1/4 pounder hamburgers and hot
dogs. Each participant is required to bring their own sack lunch or buy lunch at Lagoon.

Our first stop will be Hill Air Force Base for a tour of the Air Force Museum. Afterwords we travel to Lagoon. Those under the age of 14 will be required to check in with me every 2 hours. We will leave Lagoon at 8:15 P.M. and should arrive back at Central
at 9:30 P.M.(depending on traffic).

Please sign below and have your student bring this form on Thursday.

Hello Voyagers!
I want to take a minute and inform everyone that Brian Hawkins has returned from his mission to Portland Oregon! Brian was our Hypercard programmer until he left for his mission. Many of you first came to the Space Center and did missions
using Brian's programs.

Brian will be put to work programming our new oceanography controls for the Magellan, Odyssey, and Galileo. We will see if we can talk him into teaching Allan's advanced programming class again and starting a new class for those of you interested in learning
hypercard programming.

AGAIN, WELCOME BACK BRIAN!

Posted by Rick Cowdell

Always look to the positive . . .

>>
>> My mother taught me TO APPRECIATE A JOB WELL DONE -
>> "If you're going to kill each other, do it outside -
>> I just finished cleaning!"
>>
>> My mother taught me RELIGION -
>> "You better pray that will come out of the carpet."
>>
>> My mother taught me about TIME TRAVEL:
>> "If you don't straighten up, I'm going to knock you into the middle

>> next week!"
>>
>> My mother taught me LOGIC:
>> "Because I said so, that's why. "
>>
>> My mother taught me FORESIGHT -
>> "Make sure you wear clean underwear, in case you're in an

accident."

>>
>> My mother taught me IRONY -
>> "Keep laughing and I'll *give* you something to cry about."
>>
>> My mother taught me about the science of OSMOSIS -
>> "Shut your mouth and eat your supper!"
>>
>> My mother taught me about CONTORTIONISM -
>> "Will you *look* at the dirt on the back of your neck!"
>>
>> My mother taught me about STAMINA -
>> "You'll sit there 'til all that spinach is finished."
>>
>> My mother taught me about WEATHER -
>> "It looks as if a tornado swept through your room."
>>
>> My mother taught me how to solve PHYSICS PROBLEMS -
>> "If I yelled because I saw a meteor coming toward you; would you

listen

>> then?"
>>
>> My mother taught me about HYPOCRISY -
>> "If I've told you once, I've told you a million times - Don't
>exaggerate!!!"
>>
>> My mother taught me THE CIRCLE OF LIFE -
>> "I brought you into this world, and I can take you out."
>>
>> My mother taught me about BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION -
>> "Stop acting like your father!"

Hi my name is Kevin Anderson,

I just got back from my three week trip to Idaho to visit my cousin and help drive spud trucks for the grain harvest, and I found out that my application letter got accepted so I am
now in the waiting list.

A little bit about my self: I am 14 and go to AF Jr. High I have lived in Utah the last 10 years, before I lived here I lived in Washington D.C. and my dad worked at the Pentagon (but he can't tell me exactly what he did there but he did say it had something to do with computers).

I like science, space, reading books, watching star trek, playing my computer, riding motor cycles, and playing football. Right now I am in a lot of pain because I was swimming in a canal on Friday and slipped when I was climbing out and hit face first into a big rock and broke my front two teeth in half exposing the nerve and bit a big chunk out of my lip,
so I went to a dentist in Idaho and he covered the nerve with filling and said to have my dentist build by teeth back to normal when the roots stabilize a little more, so I am going in tomorrow to see if they can fix it yet. I hope they can fix it before school starts.

I have already wasted too much of your time so I will talk to you all later.
Kevin

August 21, 2000
Hello everyone out there this is Metta Smith. I am 14 years old, until November 29, and I am going to Mt. Ridge Junior High this year.

Sincerly,Metta M. Smith

MODERATOR'S NOTE:
ONCE AGAIN THE BLACE MARK OF THE MODERATOR MUST STRIKE CERTAIN PASSAGES FROM MR. PORTER'S SARCASTIC ESSAY.
AND NOW STEPHEN'S REMARKS.......EDITED REMARKS.

Hi, I am Stephen Porter.
Who are you?
oh, really? I have never heard of you.
Oh well.
Maybe next time kid!

Hey, Delete "CENSORED" from the volunteers thingy... is that guy still  breathing the petulant gasses as the rest of we mortals? I have not seen hide nor hair of the little guy since the high school  mission... off with his head!

Hey, I added another MP3 to the file section.

Check it out!

I just bought one of them new fangled "ball-less" mice. It is glowing bright red right now, so I haven't touched it. (I hope it goes to sleep at night, or else I won't get any winks.)

Hey, does anybody out there have an extra copy of adobe photoshop. If you do... I want it for free.

Down with the man, heaven is a halfpipe - OPM

Yeah for wayne, he is one of few people whose posts last more than 3  seconds on my screen. HEY YAA!

Boo to "CENSORED" ... She needs to be shot into the street and  dragged. I mean, why do you waste my bandwidth with such pointless  dribble as "CENSORED" in big pretty colors... Wow, it is cool  that you know HTML... that is really cool... but don't flaunt it
every second of the day, then it becomes annoying and Cliche.

Boo to judge Dredd, have you ever seen that movie?

Yeah to Cool volunteers, you know... the ones that only speak when it  is appropriate.

"I INVITE ONE OF OUR VOLUNTEERS TO RESPOND TO THIS LAST STATEMENT OF STEPHEN'S"

Third wonder.

Boo to the gallileo, cause it has wheels.

Yeah to the voyager, it has a color projector.

Boo to the magellan, for the obvios reasons.

Yeah to the odyssey, wait, on second thought... boo.

Huzzah to the falcon, to only simulator that you board via extra
vehicular activity.

Boo to board games, they smell of old spice.

Boo!! yeah! thats right... you like that? huh? thats what I thought.

Stephen Porter - Boo, hiss, queen of filth.

Le traducteur d'AltaVista de visite pour toute votre traduction a
besoin... sur l'Internet.

AS THE MODERATOR I MUST ASSUME STEPHEN HAS HAD A BAD DAY. PERHAPS THERE WAS NO PRIZE IN HIS BOX OF CRAKER JACKS. ONE CAN ONLY WONDER. LET US NOT GROW IN ANGER TOWARD THIS POOR SOLE SITTING ON THAT FRAYED LAWN CHAIR IN HIS BACK YARD LOOKING DEEPLY INTO THE EMPTY BOX WONDERING WHAT FATE WOULD DO WITH HIS PRIZE. YES, HIS PRIZE. THE PRIZE HE WAITED FOR AS HE SAVORED EACH CARMEL
KERNAL AND SAVORY PEANUT. NOW WHAT IS THERE TO LOOK FOWARD TO............? HE STANDS AND TOSSES THE BOX - THE CAUSE OF HIS DISAPPOINTMENT. HE MOVES THROUGH THE HOUSE INTO HIS BEDROOM. SITTING ON HIS BED HE OPENS HIS DRESSER AND REACHES IN TO PULL OUT HIS SOCKS. AT LEAST FATE CAN'T TAKE THIS SIMPLE PLEASURE AWAY FROM HIM. THE THRILL OF SORTING SOCKS BEFORE BED.

"WHERE'S THE MATCH FOR THIS ONE?" HE MUMBLES AS HE SEARCHES THE PILE.
"THERE YOU ARE YOU LITTLE SNEAK! THOUGHT YOU'D GET AWAY DIDN'T YOU." HE SAYS AS HE TOSSES THE CRAFTY SOCK INTO THE AIR, THEN HOLDS IT CLOSE AND LOOKS DEEPLY AT THE COLOR, THE KNIT - THEN UP TO THE NOSE ..................A DEEP BREATH...............EVEN BLINDFOLDED HE CAN TELL THEM APART.

INTO THE DRAWER THEY GO. THE LIGHTS GO OUT AND INTO BED HE CRAWLS. WHILE OTHERS DREAM OF GREAT ACHIEVEMENTS AND ROMANCE HIS EYES ROLL BACK IN THOUGHTS OF FRUIT OF THE LOOM OVER THE CALF.

GOOD NIGHT STEPHEN..........
GOOD NIGHT ALL.........

MR. WILLIAMSON

Space News
By Mark Daymont
spacerubble.blogspot.com

China succeeds at first resupply spacecraft docking

Engineers helping to assemble the Tianzhou-1 robotic space cargo vessel.

On Thursday April 19, China took another step toward its goal of permanent Chinese presence in Earth Orbit, with the launch of a Long March 7 from the Wenchang Space Launch Center. Atop the rocket as the Tianzhou-1, China's first robotic resupply spacecraft. Looking very similar to the standard shape of international space cargo ships such as Cygnus, Japan's H-2, ESA's ATV, the Tianzhou-1 was set on an orbital approach to rendezvous with the Tiangong-2 space station.

Computer representation of Tianzhou-1 in orbit with power panels deployed.

Computer representation of Tianzhou-1 docking with the station Tiandong-2.

The spacecraft rendezvoused with the station and docked successfully on Saturday the 22nd. With the main objective completed, engineers will study the combined craft operations and testing for two months. After that, Tianzhou-1 will undock and then begin a three-month period of orbital testing. Like many other cargo spacecraft, Tianzhou-1 is not designed to safely land back on Earth, but will eventually be de-orbited and burned up in the atmospheric re-entry.

Expedition 51 gets off to a busy start on ISS

Current docking arrangements on the ISS. (NASA)

Since the crew switch-over in mid-April, Peggy Whitson has been in command of the ISS and operational leader of Expedition 51. With the departure of Soyuz MS-02 earlier, that left three crew on the station to begin the Expedition 51 adventure: NASA astronaut (and station commander) Peggy Whitson, and flight engineers Oleg Novitskiy (Roscosmos), and Thomas Pesquet (ESA). While the crew awaited reinforcements from Earth, they continued biological and technical experiments, and important maintenance for an upcoming EVA on May 12.

Once again spaceships left Earth to take supplies and new crewmembers to the station. First off the pad (LC-41) was Orbital ATK's Cygnus cargo spaceship, riding atop an Atlas V rocket, on Tuesday April 18. A couple of days later, on April 20th, SOyuz MS-04 blasted off from Baikonur carrying two new crewmembers, Fyodor Yurchikhin (Roscosmos) and Jack Fisher (NASA).

Last minute photos before the roll-out of the rocket that will carry them to orbit. Yurchikhin (L) and Fisher (R). (NASA)

The Cygnus cargo ship was already in orbit when the Soyuz blasted off the pad. But this time, unlike the previous several launches, there were no more new tests to do certifying the advanced Soyuz, so the craft entered a fast-track six-hour orbital path to the station. Cygnus was on a slow approach that would bring it to the station several days later.

The tried-and-true Soyuz arcs upwards on a fast trip to the station. (NASA)

Soyuz MS_04 arrives at the station (NASA TV)

Six hours later, at 7:18 am Mountain daylight time, MS-04 finally docked at the Poisk module on the ISS. Crewmembers began the seemingly long process of equalizing pressures and turning off the propulsion systems. Three hours later the hatches were opened and Expedition 51 had a total of five crew on board. This was Yurchikhin's fifth trip to the space station, and this was Fisher's first trip to space.

NASA TV image of Cygnus spaceship maneuvering into position after reaching the station.

On Saturday the 22nd, The Cygnus spacecraft had arrived at the station. Using the robotic arm, Peggy Whitson and Thomas Pesquet grappled the cargo ship and brought it to its docking port on the Unity module. The cargo ship was named the John Glenn, after the famous Mercury astronaut who had passed away last year. The cargo amounted to 7,600 pounds of supplies, fuel, air, and experiments. It will stay at the station for about three months while it is unloaded, and garbage stored back into it.

On April 24, a special moment arrived for the station. Astronaut Peggy Whitson broke the record for US astronauts cumulative time in space, marking 535 days total on her several missions. During the day she received a congratulatory call from President Trump at the Whitehouse. Congratulations to Commander WHitson on this incredible achievement.

The Imaginarium