Is there an educational market here?

Status
Thread Closed: Not open for further replies.

Kipper

K
Just wondering - using the procedural rules to approximate solar systems in the galaxy, as far as possible, and with the amazing visuals - do you think there's an educational market here?

How good would it have been when you were at school if you could have flown through the galaxy and landed on planets? Had a good discussion about orbits and atmospheres and gas giants etc and actually see stuff happening?

All you'd need to do is have an option that allowed you to fly around without fear of being attacked by other ships.
 

nOmArch

nOmArch
Kipper said:
Just wondering - using the procedural rules to approximate solar systems in the galaxy, as far as possible, and with the amazing visuals - do you think there's an educational market here?

How good would it have been when you were at school if you could have flown through the galaxy and landed on planets? Had a good discussion about orbits and atmospheres and gas giants etc and actually see stuff happening?

All you'd need to do is have an option that allowed you to fly around without fear of being attacked by other ships.
Click to expand...

When I was at school that's what I used to do with Elite; albeit in slightly lower tech.
 

Styggron

S
I gave lectures on Programming and used Elite and Frontier as examples of procedural generation. ELITE *always* gets a mention and students are always interested. Then I tell them about Oolite/Pioneer/FFED3D etc :)

Space Engine, Orbiter and a whole host of other tools as well when teaching Astronomy / Astrophysics.
 

Sir.Tj

The Moderator who shall not be Blamed....
Volunteer Moderator
Sir.Tj
I think as most schools had BBC Micros in the 80's due to some goverment initiative, the popularity of Elite would not have been so big, I know my old school had Elite running on most machines every lunchtime.
 

Geraldine

Geraldine
You never know until you ask

One thing that is not widely known is that around Alpha 15 of Pioneer I recalled that Sir Patrick Moore used to host a UK Computer games TV show back in the early 1990s called Gamesmaster, anyways to cut a long story short, I emailed The BBC Sky At Night magazine and told them all about Pioneer and asked them if they would be interested in including it on their cover DvD (usually filled with Astronomical pictures and info).

Once they learned about the use of Newtonian Physics, star systems, galaxy model and that the game was based on FE2, they were very interested in including it! At that point, I handed the editor of the magazine over to the dev team as they knew more than me about the GPL licensing gubbins. I always wondered if they did include it on their DvD. :rolleyes:

Anyways, yes I think Elite Dangerous could be used for educational purposes :)
 

nOmArch

nOmArch
Actually it was Dominik Diamond who hosted Gamesmaster, Patrick Moore had a small cameo role as the 'Gamesmaster' and generally gave the final verdict on a game review or did the odd link between sections.

Thinking of Gamesmaster again after all this time just makes me wish Thumb Bandits and Bits were still on the air.
 

Geraldine

Geraldine
So he did nOmArch! :) My memory gets a bit fuzzy at times these days :eek:
I dont recall those ones you mentioned either, was that the ones on Cee-fax? I really miss gaming programs (even the Cee-fax pages), I guess the net killed them all off.
 

nOmArch

nOmArch
Geraldine said:
So he did nOmArch! :) My memory gets a bit fuzzy at times these days :eek:
Click to expand...

Happens to us all :)

I dont recall those ones you mentioned either, was that the ones on Cee-fax? I really miss gaming programs
Click to expand...

That's probably because Thumb Bandits only ran for one series and while Bits had five series, the first few went out at stupid o'clock.

Thumb Bandits Info

http://www.gamespaper.com/news/4sThumbBanditsgetsmixedr.shtml

Bits Info (Not much here I'm afraid)

http://www.tv.com/shows/bits/

Bits was a bit more infamous because it featured Emily Booth-Lloyd and two other gaming girls who were all a bit rude and new laddish but knew their games and were very tongue in cheek.

Basically perfect late night viewing for young males.

(even the Cee-fax pages), I guess the net killed them all off.
Click to expand...

Did you ever read the daily Channel 4 games teletext magazine 'Digitiser'?

That used to be fab in fact I still actively miss the complete silliness that they used to get away with and also provide an excellent hub for gaming news and reviews.
 
Last edited:

Geraldine

Geraldine
Digitiser! \0/, I remember that well :), checking out the latest Amiga games, cheat codes and other nonsense, ah progress isn't all its cracked up to be........sometimes:rolleyes:

Bits, now I remember the two girls, isn't one of them a news reader now?
 

nOmArch

nOmArch
I dunno, Aleks Krotoski definitely went on to other more serious journalism and I have no idea what happened to Emily Newton Dunn, she basically dropped off the face of the planet.
 

Styggron

S
Speaking of education, here is a talk David did earlier this year I think it was about bringing programming skills BACK to the classroom.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6x8qsHy43NU

We did programming at school from year 9 and now all they do are things like learning word and apps they are not engaged anymore. I have seen this happen in Australia since the mid 90s.
 

yolomcbobbinz

Y
I heard some where that some science classes used the 84 ' first elite in their lessons I suppose there is a large educational market here, astronomy students could use it to learn about star classes, understanding differences in atmosphere pressures etc.
 

DNA-Decay

DNA-Decay
Rollo said:
Yes if anything it would inspire. Although, for educational purposes, I would think Orbiter as it simulates as close as possible real space flight: http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/
It's a steep learning curve but you can land on various probable and some fictional sites.
Click to expand...
This ^^

Elite has a LOT of handwavium and silly lore post-hoc justification of how things work - for the worthy but not 'hard science' reasons of balance and gameplay.

Newtonian Mechanics? Yeah, nah pass - ain't no one got time for that.

Orbiter will actually make you understand Orbital Mechanics and help you to an instinctive understanding of Korolev's rocket equation.
Kerbal Space Program too, is better than Elite for learning the physics.

But yeesh - they uglier than your girlfriend.

And for stellar exploration there is, . . . uh starts with a C - had gigabytes of planetary renders umm. Compass? Castellar? Constellation? Chrysalis?

Anyway.
Elite is science fiction.

It makes its own sense. It works. But it's science fiction.
 
Last edited:
Status
Thread Closed: Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom