Space EdVenturer are always on the hunt for gadgets and props to outfit our simulators. Recently I found a few cool pieces on Amazon that caught attention. While made for other purposes, these gadgets will make cool additions to the Starship Voyager at The Space Place.
The Wall of Light
This beauty jumped right off the page and into my Amazon cart. I call it the Wall of Light. This small gadget is blindingly bright and comes with a phone app that allows for a gazillion different colors and patters. I'm thinking of lighting up an entire gym with alien landing party colors, or perhaps a semi darkened hallway.
The Medical Scanner
After looking at this product, how could you go back to just using the Star Trek tricorder? Think of the endless possibilities this prop could be used for.
Improving our starship simulators so our students and patrons have a more realistic experience is what we do. And that is just what I found Bracken Funk, The Space Place Director, doing last Friday. He was working with Renaissance Academy's IT tech on the installation of a new powerful core computer for the Starship Voyager. This computer will easily display two tactical screen inputs on the same main viewer without video delay.
They were also looking at programmable theater spotlights to add that extra something in the ship's lighting.
We sure have a lot of fun at The Space Place with our Starship Voyager and our 220 Young Astronauts and Voyager club members. You'll need to come by and visit us sometime.
These are the People Working With The Christa McAuliffe Space Center on Exciting New Controls and Visuals.
Imaginarium Theater
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For me, Saturday mornings start at Renaissance Academy's The Space Place for the 8:30 A.M. Coding Club. Afterwords it's off to the Christa McAuliffe Space Center in Pleasant Grove where I'm working hard to fill Tabitha Rick's shoes as the Center's new Outreach Coordinator. Tabitha was so good at her job that the learning curve I'm facing seems, at times, overwhelming. Thankfully Tabitha is always one phone call away and ready to help. Occasionally her husband Matt will answer the phone as the Space Center's Help Line located in New Delhi, India (he has a convincing accent).
I had an 11:00 A.M. meeting with James Porter, the Center's director, to discuss a few upcoming department items. Afterwards, James invited me into the planetarium to watch a demo of the Space Center's upcoming laser show. I finished the call with Tabitha, entered the planetarium, and found James and his dad Perry in the crow's nest (planetarium controls) polishing up an item or two.
With my Troubadour reporter's hat on, I had my phone out ready to record bits and pieces of the show and wow - it was better than I expected. The lasers are brilliantly bright, the planetarium's sound system is perfect for rock music, and the smoke machines kept the room smoky enough for the lasers but not London fog smokey. Getting motion sick was another of my concerns but that didn't happen either. It was a fantastic show. I don't think Pleasant Grove understands how lucky it is to have this state of the art planetarium.
I took bits of my records and put them together to make a short video of my experience. COPYRIGHT NOTICE: I removed the soundtrack to the video as requested. The Space Center is finalizing the licensing fee. Instead I found a royalty free piece of rock music to add to the video for fun's sake.
Watch for more Laser Show news on this blog or visit the Space Center's Facebook Page for details.
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The Week's Best Videos From Around the World Edited for a Gentler Audience
I have nothing but praise to bestow on InfiniD Learning today. In fact, this post will be a written testament to the genius of Skyler Carr, Casey Voeks, and everyone involved in the imagineering of their missions. The reason for my praise is something that happened last Friday. Let me tell an abbreviated version of the story.
Due to an error on my part, I left two of our Young Astronaut squadrons short their third mission / class rotation. I occasionally make scheduling mistakes when mapping out dates and times to get all our 23 Young Astronaut and Voyager Club squadrons fitted out with their 8 meetings for the school year. And because of one of those errors, I needed to have one team do a flight session and another team do a class session on the same day. That's a no-no, due to the fact that I can't be in two different places at the same time. My solution was something we'd never tried before.
I scheduled the two squadrons for last Friday. The 5th grade flight team and the 4th grade class / flight team met in my room at 12:45 P.M. I got the 5th grade team ready to start their mission and turned them over to Bracken. The 4th graders had their meeting extended to 3 hours instead of two. Their first two hours would be spent with me in the classroom while the 5th grade team flew their mission. They'd enter the Voyager for their 1 hour mission when the 5th graders went home. I needed to come up with an extra hour of curriculum. My solution was to have them do an InfiniD mission for the first hour before teaching them my prepared hour long astronomy lesson reserved for their 4th round.
I've never seen or supervised an InfiniD mission. I've seen bits and pieces here and there but never sat in on a whole flight. My sixth grade teaching partner does InfiniD as part of our science curriculum. Friday was my first InfiniD rodeo. I brought in the light cart, pulled up my preassigned mission, had the kids log in, pulled the window blinds, shut off the classroom lights and started the mission. What I saw amazed me.
My 4th Grade Tiger Squadron was into the flight from the start. I thought they'd be a hard sell considering they fly in the Voyager on a regular basis, but I was dead wrong. They were 100% immersed in the mission to Mars. I didn't have a thing to do but watch and be amazed at the amount of learning taking place.
What impressed me the most was the cooperation and communication the mission brought out in the cadets. There were some heavy debates on action items and a few mission failures along the way. In fact, that InfiniD mission had my cadets just as involved in this mission as they would be on the bridge of the Voyager. In fact, they were so immersed and involved I'm beginning to consider implementing aspects of an InfiniD mission into the way we run missions in our brick and mortar ship. It was amazing!
I'm gong to implement InfiniD missions into our Young Astronaut and Voyager clubs for the cadet's 6th classroom round coming up in a month. The program will from now one be an integral part of our club. I just need to coordinate with our cadet's classroom teachers so we're not doing duplicate missions.
InfiniD team, you've taken my dream of a classroom simulator from the early 1980's and made it real. You've found a way to take the mission magic worldwide. My hat is off to what you've accomplished and I'm proud to be the voice of your computer.
Victor
Imaginarium Theater
The Week's Best Videos From Around the World Edited for a Gentler Audience
