Two New Simulator Building Ideas. Your Comments.

Hello Troops,
A cold front has moved in from the north.  It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas.  I'm looking out my front window at the valley below.  There is a wall of white snow working its way across American Fork heading straight for Pleasant Grove. 

We had an interesting Space Center Committee meeting at Thanksgiving Point Thursday afternoon.  Thanksgiving Point management gave us a short presentation on their new museum currently under construction.  The Museum of Natural Curiosity opens in one year.  It will house several hands on science displays; making it similar in scope and sequence to San Fransisco's Exploratorium.  

Thanksgiving Point's management expressed an interest in working with the school district to provide a new home for the Space Center near the new museum.  The committee was excited about the proposal, but remember, the devil is in the details.  The district's people will get together with Thanksgiving Point's people to explore the business end of a possible partnership.  The school board will make the final decision based on their findings and the committee's recommendations.

The interest wasn't there for an Alpine District school at Thanksgiving Point at the present time.  Everyone agreed it would be a perfect site for a school, but the funding isn't there.  I've got a few ideas and haven't given up on the dream of a Space Center school (Farpoint Academy from last Saturday's post).  

It appears we will have a few ships up and running at Central School by the middle of January.

That pretty much sums up the latest news.  

Mr. W.

Your Comments     

Miranda Wrote:

Quick comment concerning laser tag vests: I believe they are too impractical and time different for our purposes. We try to pull ourselves out into the future as much as we can with the current technology available to us. The complete immersion isn't as effective without campers putting in a little acting themselves. When one plays laser tag and is "tagged" or "Down" in our case and their laser gun stops working for "x" amount of time, you lose your immersion in what you're doing.  

Playing dead on the other hand, if you're willing to believe (Just like if you're willing to believe in magic of Christmas) the experience becomes 10 times the better of what it can be seen as.  

Quick Comment on Farpoint: Please write more. The student life sounded pretty cool; however, I'm very intrigued as to how staff life would be different working for a school space center instead of just the space center. For instance, would all Flight Directors have to be teaching certified? To what degree? Would we still run private missions? What would happen/would we need a volunteer force, and who would that force consist of? 

 Thanks for brightening our day with futures soon to come (at least one can hope within the century.) 

Isaac O wrote

I HAD THE BEST IDEA EVER ON THE BUS HOME TODAY!!! Escape Pods!!! That would be SO COOL!!! if the crew has to escape or leave the ship, they jump into the escape pods (like shuttles) and then they can still use the computers and stuff! 

Anonymous wrote

First- I don't like the idea of a magnet school at all- at least not right away. It would take funds away from making the new space center a true "dream center."  

Second- With the closing of the Voyager and the destruction of the Odyssey, what will happen to the pins that were in progress? I, among others, was a 5 hr or two away from receiving my second voyager pass, consequentially giving me Voyager pin. Will all of that work have to go down the drain? 

Volunteers will no longer need Odyssey or Voyager pins to advance.  

JM wrote

Thanks for the explanation, Alex! It's nice to know your thoughts behind the design. It made me really excited for the day construction on the new CMSEC building will begin! Whenever that is, of course. 

1. Is it a dumb idea to put the Galileo outside? I don't know how weather resistant it is, but you could put it to the side of the Assembly room with a door leading directly to it. It would double as sort of an outdoor decoration/advertisement for theCMSEC and a real simulator. I also don't know how that would work with the staff trying to run missions- would you need to run wires to the Galileo (meaning the control room would have to be outside too) or can you do everything wirelessly (meaning the control room can take a corner of the Assembly room maybe)?2. I like Anonymous' idea to move the doors to the engineering sections to face the bridge. And I concur that the idea to make safety lights double as set lights is a great one! 

Oh, another thing I REALLY liked was Alex's suggestions for how to incorporate real scientific tests and principles. SO COOL! You could easily include astronomy as well by having a situation where you're lost in space and have to determine where you are based on nearby constellations or something else. Give the science officer a star chart to reference and let them put that planetarium time to good use! 

P.S. Mr. Williamson, your Farpoint Academy sounds like my childhood dream school. And I really like your writing. You should write more "Enemy from the Dark" when you have time. 

Name Classified wrote;

First of all; it looks like this is sort-of in the design already but I want to clarify. It looks to me that there is at least a small ramp in the large simulators to go to a higher bridge (half-quarter floor higher), if this isn't the case I would highly recommend it 

Second: I have an idea for the engineering problem, if I'm being able to tell what is on the bridge. It looks like you might be able to put the engineer in the corner (like on the Voyager) and have a door behind them that opens out into the engineering room, while having it lock from the bridge side. (with the other door on the design where it is) And it could be a rule to always lock it, and then make that rule important in certain missions where when the ship is invaded an intruder try's to get in that way. And if the door is unlocked you get knocked a point down because that is a less defensible area, and the ship gets invaded because the other intruders are coming the other way and nobody notices the one intruder until it's too late 

Sorry for the long comment, I hope that I made enough sense to be understood!
I keep hoping for the best future for the Center! 

Two Simulator Floor plans Submitted by Our Readers

Connor P sent the floor plan and email below.  Feel free to comment.

Mr. Williamson,
This is my concept of what the "ideal" space center would be like. Notice I didn't use the word "dream" as was used in the first design submitted by Alex, because I could dream a lot more than this. Rather than being beyond my wildest dreams, this is the general layout that I think could work for the space center. As it stands, however, it is probably a fair bit beyond the current budget.
Before I explain, I have a couple of disclaimers: One, these rooms are not even close to drawn to scale. (In other words, I don't think that the classrooms should be the same size as two bathrooms.) Two, I had a lot of extra space that I didn't know what to do with after I placed my initial ideas. Based on the feedback that Alex gave about the comments from everybody, I think I will rework this design to better fit reality and remove the "extra" stuff.
Now, for the explanation. I divided my concept into "zones" in the second picture. I will start with explaining a little bit about that.

1. Welcome/Business Zone (green): The experience should begin with everything the students/campers and their parents need before the actual mission. This includes payment and questions in the office, storage for overnighters, and bathrooms for beforehand. I even provided for the possibility of a museum that Mr. Williamson talked about; display cabinets or other information about the space center's history could be put in the foyer.

1. Simulation Zone (red): Once you enter this zone, I believe the simulation "experience" should begin, and should only be interrupted for very rare circumstances. This goes along with my previous comments about how to make the hallways futuristic to fit in more with this experience (see this post, just before the imaginarium). This would only need to be done in the hallways in the Simulation Zone. As I will explain more when I get to the Staff Zone, staff and volunteers will be able to access these areas through other hallways if necessary. This zone includes space for away missions.

1. Education Zone (orange): This zone is for the education part of the space center (Note: in my next version of my design, I probably will combine this zone with the Overnight Needs Zone. As Alex said, the planetarium could be put inside the assembly hall). This is probably my area of least expertise, so I will defer to the comments of others. I do believe that education can and should be a larger focus of the new center.

1. Overnight Needs Zone (yellow): Not much comment is needed here, but I have an idea I may comment on later for a separate sleeping area that avoids some of the issues that stop the center from doing that now. It would be nice to have one specific area for campers to have everything they need at night for an overnighter.

1. Staff Zone (blue): This zone doesn't really need to be this big, but I think it is wise to have a separate space for the staff and volunteers, especially if we don't have Discovery anymore. Notice that every one of the control rooms is accessible from the main hallways. It will be sad not to have the central office for the entrance to three of the simulators and their control rooms, but I think this option will ultimately be better. This way, staff can quickly get to where they need to, including the away mission areas, other control rooms, and anywhere else in the center for supplies. It may still be worthwhile to make a way for the staff to get to their respective control rooms from the "transporter room", but you get the idea. There is also space for the programming guild and a room for laundry and maintenance, but I think in my revised design these will have to be combined with the staff room.

Anyway, that is my design. I hope you get what I am going for. My next idea I will talk about in the future is how the control rooms themselves can be made just a little bit more efficient and effective.
Connor P's floorplan:

Nathan Winters sent the floor plan below.  Please feel free to comment.

My Old Space Center Rituals and The Imaginarium.

Hello Troops,

Its hard to shake a routine once it gets stuck into the fiber of your being.  One such routine was my Friday morning ritual of going Space Center Overnight Camp grocery shopping.  

For 22 years,  I use to go shopping early Friday morning to pick up the food and supplies for that weekend's Overnight Camp.  I shopped at American Fork's Albertsons when the Space Center first opened.  Pleasant Grove's Smiths was the next business blessed to have Space Center trade and Lindon's Walmart was the last.

My Space Center routines were embedded with other routines.

Friday Space Center Shopping Routine:

1.  Arrive at Walmart at 7:10 A.M.
2.  Get a shopping cart, hoping it wasn't one with a gimpy wheel.  Walmart likes 
     to file a flat spot onto one wheel of many of their shopping carts.  They do it to
     discourage the homeless from stealing carts and turning them into permanent
     transportable storage containers. 80% of the time I'd get the crippled cart,
     making me easily found anywhere in the grocery lanes.
3.  First stop, fruit.  Bananas, clementines and apples.
4.  Second stop, doughnuts and cookies.  I'd order seven dozen for
     Saturday morning's breakfast.  I also picked up four dozen cookies to add to
     the evening's snack. 
5.  Third stop, ice cream sandwiches.  MeadowGold were the best.
6.  Fourth Stop, paper towels,napkins and 9oz cups.
     The Great Values brand towels divided into half lengths are the best.  9 oz
     plastic cups are preferred.  It takes less juice to fill them - hence lowering
     the cost of your liquids.  Remember, a few pennies saved here and there will
     eventually lead up to a new simulator (over a very very very very long period
     of time of course).
7.  Fifth stop, Dairy.  Gogurts, Sunny Delight, milk and chocolate milk are a must
     for a well balanced Space Center breakfast.
8.  Final stop, Day Old Rack.  You'd be surprised what you find on the Bakery's
     Day Old Rack (kept inconveniently at the back of the store in the Dairy
     Section).  All Staff and Volunteer snacks were found on the Day Old Rack.
     They knew to ignore the yellow sticker and be thankful for small blessings.

My routine included checking out with my favorite cashiers (if their lines were reasonably short).  My Walmart friends and I would catch up on the week's news as they scanned my purchases.  Every shopping trip ended with a friendly, "See ya next week."  

I've kept that Friday morning Walmart routine despite the Space Center's closure.   I do it because it gives me a sense of normalcy in uncertain times.  It also lets me keep in touch with the friends I've made over the years.

This morning I walked into the store and said "hello," to the usual, somewhat friendly, door greeter

"How's the Space Center doing?" she asked with a quick salute.

"Down, but not out," I answered.

"That's good," she replied.

I bypassed the shopping carts and went straight to the candy isle to pick up a bag of Tootsie Rolls (bribes for my math students).  Before checking out, I picked up a package of Jack Link's Premium Cuts Jalapeno Carne Seca Beef Jerky and a Diet Mr. Dew for myself.

I scanned the checkout stands looking for a short line with a familiar face.

"Mr. Williamson, I'm open," I heard one of the cashiers say.  I looked down two registers and saw a cashier friend I hadn't seen for quite awhile.

A year ago this cashier told me she had breast cancer.  She said she would be going on an extended sick leave for treatment.   She explained the chemo treatment and its side effects.  She expressed her worries about the medical bills.  She tried to keep things positive, but her eyes said differently.

That was one year ago.  Today I found her back at work, manning her till.  She looked tired.  Her hair was growing back and her smile and laugh were just as I had remembered.  We only spoke for a moment; others were waiting in line.  She said her treatment was successful.  She was cancer free. 

"How has surviving cancer affected you?" I asked.  I wondered if the question was too personal right after I had asked it.  I didn't want to pry. 

She thought for a moment.  I could tell it was a questioned she wasn't asked often.
"I've learned to appreciate each day and take them as they come," She replied as she handed me my receipt.  "Things don't get me down as much as they use to."

"Its something we all need to learn," I replied.  "I'll see you next week.  Take care."

"Have a great day," she answered.

That brief conversation with my cashier friend put things into context.  I realized I had to learn not to stress over things out of my control.  I had to learn not to dwell on the bad, because things could either get better or worse.  I had to learn to count my blessings and enjoy each day.  I needed to stop and notice the small and simple things in life.

 It was a lesson I needed.  Thank you my friend. 
 

  And Now, the Imaginarium 

A poor man's four wheeler.

What a view from that swingset

A waterpark:  Imagination A.

Perfect Christmas Gifts.

Ingenuity:  A

Two true random acts of holiday kindness.

Do a random act of kindness for someone this holiday season.

The Formula for Hate.

Creativity: A

A Map of Wonderland.

Where would you make your home?

Something for your baby this holiday season.

Worthy of a holiday smile or two.

Old School.

Awesome.

My membership application is in the mail.

A software company's Christmas Tree

I'll buy season tickets to this theater.

News, Alex Responds to Your Comments on the Designs. Answers to Your Questions

Hello Troops,

The Odyssey is ready for demolition.  Kyle Herring, Matt Ricks and I worked on cleaning it out on Monday.  The old gal's equipment has been stored away to be used in the other ships.  Her engineering panels (dials and switches) were saved.

I'll post more on the Odyssey in a future post.  Please remember, the Odyssey was given up so we could reopen the Phoenix and the Space Center's office.  Repairing the Odyssey would have been far too expensive.  The Odyssey and Voyager will be remembered fondly by all those who flew, worked and volunteered in them.

Mr. W.

Alex Debirk Responds to your Comments on the New Building Designs

 

Below (in blue), Alex DeBirk responds to the questions and comments made concerning the building plans he submitted for discussion.  His plans were posted on The Troubadour several days ago for your reference.  

Mr. W.

Dear Troubadour Readers,

Thanks for the comments and I'm pleased with the generally positive response to my drawings. I thought I should explain the reasoning behind why I drew what I did to assuage some of the concerns. I also want to respond to the most common comments.

The "dream design" was based on a concept that Vic, myself, BJ, Skyler, and others with the volunteer building committee developed over the Thanksgiving holiday, so I can't really take credit for it. When I was drawing it up, I could tell that our concept was a good one, though, because it practically drew itself.

The main idea behind the dream design was to first build or acquire a large warehouse space (think what you could do with an empty Costco!) and stick frame the Center with whatever we wanted inside: multiple floors; myriads of access points; huge screens outside hallway windows showing stars, nebulae, passing ships etc.; huge flexible away mission space.   Among other things, I wanted to have portable hallway sections (straight, T's, intersections, etc.), stored somewhere in the warehouse's corner, that could be attached in myriad combinations for away missions, to the same effect that the Galileo's PVC pipe tunnels once had. Of course, this was just way beyond the District's current cost projections.

So I drew the other design, and many of you seem to feel like it is lacking some things. That's because it is. With $2.5 million and a certain price per square foot, I simply had to stick to the bare minimum, which is: the Center's classrooms, simulators, and planetarium have to be able to accommodate 4 large 35-ish student classes a day and provide functionality for camps. With the price limits, there just isn't any room for extra stuff like dedicated away mission space and second floors. I could barely fit in the essentials! The price per square foot that I used is of course is based on my intuition and small experience; a more refined estimate could yield opportunities to add more stuff to the Center.

But as it is, the cost is what drove my design to the bare bones that it is. When I couldn't fit something in, I usually combined it with something else. Thus you have the Assembly area, which is intended to serve as the Galileo shuttlebay, the starlab, and the cafeteria. It wouldn't be the first time these things have shared a space. The classrooms will be the briefing rooms, staff rooms, and away mission rooms like they are right now. And some ships can train while the others brief.

The only thing I indulged in was the curved hallways with portholes looking into the great beyond. A curved hallway gives a much better sense of immensity than square hallways, and the fact that it loops around all of the ships has advantages. And I just have always dreamed a remote, undramatic hallway in the Center where when you least expected it, you passed by you could suddenly see out into the stars. My intent was to have a large black drape with LED's sewn into it hung back from the windows in such a way that you couldn't see the edge of it from the hallway. Then the windows themselves would have tinted glass, so that while the lights from the LED's are still visible, no light would shine from the window onto the cloth and break the effect.

I also added the Guild Hall so that programming classes or acting workshops and the like can happen there.

Ok, now to comments. The most common comments that I saw were:

1. Every ship needs to be different.

First off, I think so too. So I made four different ship sizes: 2 Voyager-class, 2 Odyssey-class, 2 Phoenix-class and the Galileo in the assembly area. It may not look like it at first, but the small ships actually have two different sizes. It's not clear that they're different because I purposefully didn't flesh them out like I did the large ships. Unlike the large ships, I felt I could estimate the total size needed for a small ship without specifically planned doors and rooms. That means that the small ships are still undefined--they can be all different or all the same. The undefined space includes room for the control rooms in there somewhere too. I never intended there to be just two control rooms for six simulators. 

My personal preference is that we have two identical large ships (18 students), two identical Odyssey ships (8-9 students), and two identical Phoenix ships (also 8-9 students but with a different layout than the Odyssey).

There are some distinct advantages to having exact copies of ships:

First, replication can be cheaper. Second, the Phoenix and Odyssey were so popular they could have run all day, every day, after school. So why not build a copy to accommodate the demand? Third, having copies gives Flight Directors and staff more chances to work without having to train on a new ship and new missions. When I was a Voyager FD, there were so many other Voyager FD's that it was difficult to get a time slot, and the other ships were either too time-consuming to learn and/or had the same problem. I would have welcomed a second copy of the Voyager, so I could get into the chair more often.

2. The large ships should have second floors.

I completely agree--Deck 2 is one of my favorite parts of the Voyager. However, it simply seemed cost-prohibitive because of the costs of building higher or excavating lower, not to mention also having to install elevators to be ADA compliant. And what if an elevator failed during a mission? I didn't even want to think about it. All I could think was "Keep It Simple, Stupid."

My personal preference would be to have a vast basement that was built very bare and cheaply. It would provide all the Deck 2's and away mission space that you could dream of. But that all means extra square footage, which I couldn't justify.

3. Missing rooms like the starlab, control rooms, engineering rooms, and away mission space.

As I said in Response 1, each ship has its own control room--the small ships' control rooms are still undefined, but can fit inside the space. The starlab can be in the Assembly room, and each large ship has its own engineering room and sickbay because if there were a combined rooms between ships, you would have crew mingling who are doing different missions, who were in different stages of danger, desperation, etc. The effect would be the same as leaving a dark, crippled ship for an away mission only to step into a sun-brightened school hallway full of 1st grader artwork.

I would like engineering rooms to have equipment for experiments and scientific calculations that are integral to the mission. Like a damaged probe with critical information. The main power circuit is fried, so why not teach the kid how to build an actual circuit from scratch, using resistors, voltage calcs, etc (just do the sautering yourself maybe)? Or maybe teach them to use Bernoulli's principle/continuity principle to calculate how long until fuel runs out because of a leak or how wide they need to build the new antimatter/deuterium/whatever tube to provide enough fuel to the transwarp drive? Need a stronger tractor beam? Have the engineer design new trusses to withstand higher loads. Is this planet's air breathable? Let's get a sample and do a real chemistry test on it to see if it has oxygen or methane. These are surprisingly easy things to do and teach! And by integrating actual principles in physics, engineering, biology, chemistry into missions and making it critical to the mission's success, whoever does the experiment will have an emotional response connected to the science, and will remember that principle forever. I think that putting more actual hands on science into the missions is one way that the Space Center can really pioneer new scientists and mathematicians. Of course, for the drama to set in you would have to have each large ship have its own engineering room so that one ship's engineers didn't meet the other ship's and say "What are you doing there? We need everyone's help on this life or death project!" and the others go "Life or death? We're just analyzing soil samples to see what planet the Pakled's ship came from." "Pakled!? Half the ship has been assimilated by the Borg!" and so on.

4. Noise

I don't see many noise problems. Each ship is purposefully surrounded by hallways, and empty space is a surprisingly effective sound barrier, and naturally, each perimeter wall in each simulator will be specially designed for sound proofing. The real problem would be having the Galileo and the starlab run simultaneously. I just didn't have anywhere else to put it that I could afford. I'm aware of the problem and perhaps someone can find somewhere clever to put it, or when all is said and done, there will be enough money to build a special space like the kiva for it so that we could also have an interesting away mission space.

I think that about does it. Sorry for the long post, but I hope it explained some things behind the design. And of course, nothing is set in stone.

Alex

Your Comments and Questions

CMSECisAwesome22 Wrote:

On the save the space center site it says you are trying to reopen the Phoenix Magellan and Galileo. How much time until they possibly reopen? And I am an observing volunteer and just need the Galileo and Magellan to complete. Do you think I could observe those ships when they reopen?

Thank you CMSEC for the question.  I don't know when the Magellan, Galileo and Phoenix will reopen.  It could be sometime after the start of the next year (January or February) or perhaps later.  Yes, volunteers won't have to observe in the Voyager (it is closed forever) and Odyssey (it is being demolished next week). 
 
Anonymous Wrote:

I have an idea for phaser battles!
The problem with laser tag is the bulky and temperamental equipment, and the problem with supervisors calling shots is that it damages the suspension of disbelief. Well, I have an idea.
If reflective patches could be put on the uniforms, and if the light from the phasers could be focused (maybe with foil) enough to reach a few yards like a flashlight, then it would make it obvious when a target has been hit. Campers and volunteers would be told to go down when the reflective patches flash.
Meanwhile, the supervisors could work like referees, double checking to make sure that people who have been shot go down.

Matt L Wrote:

Are we removing the idea for having multiple floors? I think we would lose a lot by not having a basement...

Thank you Matt for the question.  Alex answered your question in letter posted at the top of this post.

Anonymous Wrote: 

I like the design overall, but...
-My biggest concern is that each engineering section is too isolated from the bridge. It's like the old science station on the Voyager, that campers would leave because they wanted to see what was going on on the bridge. If the door was moved to lead right onto the bridge, with a good view of what was going on, the engineers would probably feel less cut off.
-A basement or upper level for flexible space would be nice.
-I love the idea someone made about covering up any windows with covers that resemble touchscreens.
-I also like the idea someone had about making the safety lights double as set lights, to make the hallways look more futuristic.

lperry Wrote:

Even though the closing of the Space Center was devastating to me, since to my mind it is the most successful educational experience I've ever taken part in, I want to thank Victor for modeling what it's like to handle change, to work with people with whom one may disagree, to innovate--even when what one is changing is something that was working well. In this, too, Victor, has shown himself to be the finest teacher I know.

Thank you lperry for the kind comments.  You've brightened and old teacher's day!
 
Nolan Wrote:

Mr. Williamson,
I really like the new design.  But I think that we need the following:

1. An open space for away teams.  We can't just have all our away teams in the hall.  We need an open space for the shootouts.
2. More control rooms. Like people say that it would be crowded and loud.
3. I'd say that we should change the design in the large simulators.  I really don't like having them being symmetrical.
4. We may need a 2nd floor to put some of the simulators on.  It would be very limited space with 7 ships on the same floor.
5. Laser Tag vests would help a lot.  It would help solve confusion with people knowing if they're down or not because the vest would make a sound if shot.  And if they're shot, the phaser won't work until a certain amount of time.  But the problem would be cost.  How many of these would we need for intruders, crew members, etc...? These will be expensive but worth it.  
6. Sleeping areas for staff and campers if we continue overnight programs.  If we had bunks on the large simulators and maybe some in the small simulators, we might not have people sleep on the floor or use the cots. 

Thank you for your time.
Nolan B.

Rachel F.  Wrote:

I really like connors hall idea. When i was a camper i remember wanting to have a cooler effect for the away missions and having the same thought as a volunteer.
I know that when we would run the away missions there would always be a lack of hiding places if we had a shoot out so i am wondering if we will have anything to help with that.

Thank you Rachel for the question.  Alex discusses landing parties in his post at the beginning of this post.

Anonymous Wrote: 

It would be kind of neat if one of the new simulators took either a Battlestar Galactica or Babylon 5 direction. I liked the ships of those series because they seemed to be designed with utility in mind first, with aesthetics coming after rather than the other way around.
Then again, the Magellan seems to be headed in that direction anyway, with it being based off of the Daedalus of Stargate, and carrying a squad of Colonial Vipers...

Anonymous Wrote:  

I think we can never truelly get rid of staff helping call shots, because kids could easily just cover the sensor up, but they get shot some were else. We'de cover them in full body sensors! :)  

Anonymous Wrote concerning Farpoint Academy:

Ah, but I would want to go so bad, but I love band, and you know magnet schools for science dont have bands. Why do you have to make me so conflicted! :) It does sound pretty cool though, but it should change crews, not just have the same one all the time. Strange crew members are half the fun.

Keaton Wrote concerning Farpoint Academy:

Yeah. I would love to go to a school like this! I like the comparison to Hogwarts in space.