InfiniD Looking to Hire a Starship Holodeck Programmer (For Real!) Watching the Apollo Simulator in Action. Will Isaac's Controls Work on Touchscreens? The Imaginarium.

InfiniD Looking to Hire a Starship Holodeck Programmer (No Kidding)  

by Skyler Carr

We are InfiniD Learning, and we build spaceships, shrink-rays, and time machines to fix education, and we are looking to hire a Sr Developer to accelerate our growth.

We hope this announcement finds its way to those that have an overdeveloped nerdy side along with a desire to fix education with us. At InfiniD Learning we believe that simply giving a student a reason to care about what they are learning can have a bigger impact than anything else. Fortunately, that’s what we’re the best at. You may have seen our technology in action at one of the Space Centers in Utah Valley. We develop curriculum based, educational experiences and plug them into our simulation platform for the students to apply what they are learning in the classroom. It’s amazing to see how much a student cares about math (or history, or science) when the lesson is prefaced with “you are going need to know this or you probably won’t survive.”

The goal is to build upon the current software and technology base until it allows for meaningful application experiences in and out of the classroom for every standard K-12. The most meaningful experience students have applied their knowledge shouldn’t be on a bubble sheet.

So far the development of the control interface, curriculum deployment, and database features has been performed through contractual relationships. Things are now moving way too fast for that to keep happening. Our bread and butter have been in experience design and animation, which has allowed for this hire to be delayed as long as it has, but there is no way we are going another year without killing it in the software as well.

Are you interested?  If so, read more about this position:   http://infinidlearning.com/careers/

A Summer of Fun at the Lion's Gate Center, Lakeview Academy

Isaac Ostler and I recently spent a morning at Lakeview Academy's Lion's Gate Center at Saratoga Springs. Nathan King and Kendrick Gines had a private mission for a family group.
While I enjoyed watching Nathan and Kendrick fly the Apollo simulator, Isaac worked in the Artemis control room testing his new Interstellar simulator controls on touch screen computers.
  

Nathan and Kendrick prep their crew for boarding in the Lion's Gate multipurpose room.

The crew boards the Apollo through Transporter 1B. 

Isaac at work in the Artemis control room. The question to be answered; will his new Interstellar simulator controls work on touchscreen computers?

Lion's Gate Director Nathan King at the Apollo's controls working simulator magic

Kendrick Gines retrieving an engineering device recently assembled by the ship's onboard engineer

The false grating is put back into place

The engineering did a good job. The device worked which had a major role in 'saving the day'

With the private mission over, it was time to see how Interstellar worked on the Artemis's computers

The results of the simulator tests were good. Interstellar worked fairly well.  The one hiccup was discovered in how the touchscreens responded to the software's mouse commands.  Isaac is sure he's found a patch to solve the issue.   

 A Real Treat: See Nathan at Work in the Apollo Control Room

 Imaginarium

Harry Potter, similar to Lord of the Rings

Spokes: Biking Across America Presents FREE Camps at the Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center. Renaissance Academy's Farpoint Young Astronauts and Voyagers Attend Space Camp. Imaginarium Theater

Spokes: Biking Across America Camps at the Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center. FREE!

The Stanford sections of Spokes America just confirmed that they will be hosting free camps at Central Elementary on July 10th. These camps are for students who will be in grades 7th-10th of next year. 100% FREE. Click the link below to register and check out our other regular camps as well.

Please be considerate and only sign up for one spot per child at first, but if the rest don't fill up after a couple of days feel free to take another spot. We had a lot of students who didn't get into the MIT camps in August.

https://clients.mindbodyonline.com/classic/ws…

The Camps and Times

Would You Like to Do A Follow-Up Camp at the Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center? How About a Nice Discount?

Attend a CMSEC 2 Day Space Camp on July 11 and 12 using the code STANFORD and get 20% off the regular price.  What an opportunity for fun and learning.

https://spacecenter.alpineschools.org/camps/

Renaissance Academy's Farpoint Young Astronauts and Voyagers Attend Space Camp

Our Farpoint Cadets at the CMSEC

The USS Voyager at Renaissance Academy held its first 2-day summer space camp last week.  Our cadets had a great time flying an extended five-hour mission on the USS Voyager.  The camp started at 2:30 P.M. on day 1, ending that evening at 8:00 P.M.  Isaac Ostler flew his new mission with Maeson Busk working as his wing man at IIFX. 

Our cadets joined other campers at the Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center in Pleasant Grove for the second day of the 2-day camp.  Day two began at 8:30 A.M.  The campers signed in and were given a seniority rank. 

CMSEC director James Porter welcomed the campers and explained the day's schedule.  

The day's flight directors made their grand entrance, took their positions and waited for the disbursement.  Mr. Porter introduced the flight director, his / her ship, and the mission for that session. The campers chose which ship to fly based on their rank. 

Lunch was served at 11:30 A.M.

 

The CMSEC volunteers have life easy when it comes to meals in these camps.  Central School serves free community lunch to anyone under the age of 18.  The volunteers start their 30-minute lunch break in the school's cafeteria enjoying the free community meal; afterward, it's a short walk from the cafeteria to the gym to feast on a second, Space Center, provided lunch.

After lunch, the campers were redivided into new teams for their final, 5-hour mission.  

Camp surveys and voting for their favorite volunteers took up the camp's last 15 minutes. 

The volunteers lined up for introductions in the Lord of the Votes voting ceremony.

The camp ended at 5:30 P.M. According to the survey's, the Farpoint Cadets enjoyed the camp very much.  Joint camps between space centers is a good way for our students to experience the best experiential education available to your average mortal.  This camp between Farpoint at Renaissance Academy and the Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center was a win-win for both centers.

Flight Directors Devon and Natalie use every available minute to catch up on news and other work. There is never an idle moment at the CMSEC. 

A Twenty-seven-year tradition: The dispensing of sugar to the volunteers at the conclusion of every mission at the CMSEC.

Wednesday's Imaginarium Theater Matinee

Announcing Thorium: A New Set of Starship Controls. What's It Like to Flight Direct the New USS Voyager at Renaissance Academy? Lakeview Academy's Lion's Gate Center Posts its First Mission Trailer. Imaginarium Theater

A New Set of Starship Simulator Controls! Introducing Alex Anderson's Thorium.  The Next Generation in Simulator Software.

Alex demonstrated how the framework code enhanced the stability and flexibility of the Thorium system.
I politely nodded, pretending to understand. 

Hello Troops,
It was difficult starting the Space Center 27 years ago. The CMSEC (as far as I know) was the nation's first local, school-based attempt at creating a fully immersive experiential education spaceship simulator. Everything you see in today's Voyager inspired starship simulators had their start on the Voyager and its sister ships: Odyssey, Magellan, Galileo, and Phoenix, during those first two-plus decades.

One of my first major decisions was to choose between computer controls or dial and switch controls to operate the Voyager. An electrician could install dial and switch controls (cheaper than a programmer). The downside was the cost of all those dials and switches. Computers, on the other hand, offered unique flexibility in control but needed a programmer. Starship simulator software was non-existent.  

In the end, I settled on computers. Apple flew me to Cupertino for a weekend crash course in Hypercard programming. After that, I was on my own to create the Voyager's first set of controls (laughable as they were).  Since that first year, multiple sets of starship controls have been written by students, amateur programmers, semi-professional, and professional programmers.  Each set of controls hoped to be better than the last.  That brings us up to today and this exciting announcement. 

Introducing Thorium, the newest set of starship controls, nearly ready for deployment, written by Alex Anderson with contributions from Brent Anderson, Todd Rasband, and Matt Ricks.  Alex took me through the alpha version of Thorium on Saturday. I was impressed! Now it's your turn to see a few screenshots of the controls and learn more about them. I wouldn't do Thorium justice with my limited understanding of programming (I find Scratch challenging), so I asked Alex to write the following post for The Troubadour.  If you're not excited by a new set of starship controls, I suggest you check your pulse to see if you alive.  

Mr. Williamson  

Thorium
by Alex Anderson

Folks, for the past year I’ve been incognito developing a new set of simulator controls. It’s called Thorium and it is designed to be the universal simulator controls of the future. What makes these controls great?

* They can run multiple simulations at the same time, with simulators operating in the same universe. Yeah, that’s right. They are built for joint missions.

* A timeline system allows you to pre-compose your mission beforehand and trigger actions for each moment of a mission. It’s basically your mission binder rolled into the controls.

* It’s flexible. Want to run a 4 person ship? Great. Want to run a 14 person space station. Fabulous. Want to change what kind of ship you are running in the middle of a mission? No problem. Thorium supports any configuration of simulator imaginable with support for multiple layouts, skins, and card configurations. 

* Data is stored as a stream of events, which means after the mission you can see exactly what happened at any given moment of the mission. Great for post-mission reviews and analytics. 

* And MUCH MUCH MORE!

The greatest thing about these controls is that they are designed to be future-proof. There are a lot of amazing things that can be done with simulator controls, but none of the controls developed yet have had the longevity to develop these advanced features. The hope is that Thorium will be different. The controls are nowhere close to being done (currently in Alpha status), but development continues at a steady pace.

If you want to see what amazing things are in store, check out the roadmap (https://github.com/Thorium-Sim/thorium/projects/2). You can even create an account on GitHub and request your own features (use the ‘Issues’ tab). I’ll be posting development updates every week on the blog (http://thorium.ralexanderson.com/). If you have any questions or want to see a live demo of the controls in their current state, email me at thoriumsim@gmail.com.

What is it Like Flight Directing the New USS Voyager at Renaissance Academy?

Watch Maeson Busk and Learn.

Is Maeson Busk ready to ascend the astronomical heights of Flight Directing Olympus and take a seat next to the Gods of Flight Directing (pretty much a self-declared title)?  I'm not sure so I'll let you decide for yourself. Pay close attention to his acrobatic skills at the end of the video. I'm sure you'll be impressed. Maeson is minutes away from finishing a 5 hour mission for Mr. James Porter and staff from the Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center in Pleasant Grove.

Lakeview Academy's Lion's Gate Center Posts its First Mission Trailer

Nathan King, director of the Lion's Gate Center at Lakeview Academy, is pleased to present their very first mission trailer.  Contact the Lion's Gate for private mission and camp information.
Tell them you're a Troubadour for an enthusiastic High Five!

Imaginarium Theater
The Best Gifs of the week edited for gentler audiences who appreciate a break in their boring lives. Perfect for family gatherings when something - anything - is needed to distract grandpa from telling one more story.