Question - Use with Students?

[GCAA]

Hi, I am a high school teacher and I am working with students to design Space Settlement. I have several questions:

1. Would High Frontier be appropriate for my students to use?
2. Is the Forum kid friendly? (school appropriate)
3. If I have a group of four students do I need to buy a game for each student?
4. Can the students work collaboratively on a settlement?
5. What else do I need to know to get started

I'm personally not into games but I see this as an excellent way to teach students about living and working in Space. Please advise.

THANK YOU!

[JoeStrout]

Great questions!  In order:

1. Yes, I think you'll find High Frontier can be very educational.  You may want to just use "Sandbox" mode rather than standard game mode, so they have access to all available parts and orbits right away.

2. Yes, everyone on this forum so far has been family-friendly, and if somebody were to get out of hand, I would try to delete offensive posts quickly.  I don't think it'd be a problem (and we'd love to hear from you and your students).

3. Contact me by email (support at highfrontier.com) about getting you set up with appropriate license(s) for your group.  I don't want cost to be a barrier for you.

4. High Frontier is not a network game, so to work collaboratively would involve two or more students sitting around one computer, sharing ideas and working on one design.  Or, you could have the kids each do their own design and then compare.

5. A key thing to keep in mind is that the needs of a space colony vary depending on what orbit you're going to be in.  For example, low Earth orbit is well protected from cosmic rays, but because it's in the dark half the time, solar panels only produce half as much power.  So, in the Analysis tab of the build screen, be sure to set the "analyze for" orbit to your orbit of choice!

Sounds like you have some lucky students there.  Please let us know how it goes!

[GCAA]

(11-06-2016, 04:12 PM)I will talk to the students this week at school and make a decision about how to proceed. Thanks for the information! JoeStrout Wrote: Great questions!  In order:

1. Yes, I think you'll find High Frontier can be very educational.  You may want to just use "Sandbox" mode rather than standard game mode, so they have access to all available parts and orbits right away.

2. Yes, everyone on this forum so far has been family-friendly, and if somebody were to get out of hand, I would try to delete offensive posts quickly.  I don't think it'd be a problem (and we'd love to hear from you and your students).

3. Contact me by email (support at highfrontier.com) about getting you set up with appropriate license(s) for your group.  I don't want cost to be a barrier for you.

4. High Frontier is not a network game, so to work collaboratively would involve two or more students sitting around one computer, sharing ideas and working on one design.  Or, you could have the kids each do their own design and then compare.

5. A key thing to keep in mind is that the needs of a space colony vary depending on what orbit you're going to be in.  For example, low Earth orbit is well protected from cosmic rays, but because it's in the dark half the time, solar panels only produce half as much power.  So, in the Analysis tab of the build screen, be sure to set the "analyze for" orbit to your orbit of choice!

Sounds like you have some lucky students there.  Please let us know how it goes!