Today our students became spaceship engineers. Engineers go through a rigorous design process to map out and address the various requirements of a given project.

Tasked with creating an interstellar spaceship for people, our second graders were guided through this engineering process. They first had to define the problem, then list design requirements, and only then start thinking about solutions to those problems. Several issues (such as sourcing materials and getting into orbit) were simplified or hand-waved in order to allow them to focus on the ship’s sub-systems.

The students learned that in order to support live, active humans the ship will need a lot of life-support sub-systems! One such system was artificial gravity; the instructor demonstrated how a rotating structure (basket swung around on a string) appears to hold objects on its interior surface. This effect, known as centripetal force, could be applied to our upcoming spaceship model to simulate gravity!