They will need to engineer a way to offset the new temperature imbalance, which becomes an adventure unto itself. Melting ice, or condensing steam from a geyser might begin to seem like the easiest option, but this creates a new set of problems: if they start haphazardly transporting lots of hot (or cold) water into their base, students might cook (or freeze) their entire colony. Even with dedicated purification and recycling, some water will inevitably be lost over time, and the player will need to look for new water sources. The player must construct systems to filter out contaminated water, purify it, and return this precious resource back to the colony. Mismanaged water systems get gross very quickly. Without careful planning, a colony’s entire water supply can easily become polluted and unusable. This leads to another problem: bathrooms tend not to return their water as clean as it was before, and other systems might also return their water in various states of contamination. ![]() The player needs to plan how to efficiently distribute water to and from each of the systems that need it. The colony needs water for many things: growing crops, operating the bathrooms, removing CO 2, and even making oxygen via electrolysis. Water Management in Space is HardĪs an example of just one of the many challenges players will face in Oxygen Not Included, let’s consider the problem of managing the colony’s water system. Players will need to make many, many contraptions like this in order to succeed. This is an example of a simple system for creating oxygen gas by electrolysis. Players will fail on their first few tries – and this is a good thing! Professional engineering projects often require many attempts to get right, and students desperately need to experience the harsh teachings of failure firsthand. Oxygen Not Included is a very difficult game, and each of these challenges requires a serious amount of effort to overcome. Here are a few of the engineering topics students will need to tackle in order to succeed: Just like in the real world, building a successful space colony is a massive engineering challenge. Filled to the Brim with Engineering Goodness Here, you can see that hydrogen gas (pink) is floating over chlorine gas (green), because hydrogen gas is less dense. Oxygen Not Included simulates some of the basic physics of fluids. As a physicist myself, I’m sincerely impressed by the way Oxygen Not Included manages to convey complex science in an approachable way. Many real scientific principles are approximated fairly well within the game, and there are lots of opportunities for students to discover something exciting just by playing. ![]() One of the remarkable things about Oxygen Not Included is that it includes elements of genuine physics simulation in other words, the game is little bit like having access to a research lab on your personal computer. Keeping the colonists alive requires careful management of the asteroid’s limited resources to produce breathable oxygen, grow food, manage waste, maintain a livable temperature, and conduct research. Oxygen Not Included is a brilliant video game in which the player guides a small group of colonists as they struggle to survive on an asteroid. ![]() ![]() Now, I’m excited to discuss one of the absolute best tools for doing this: Oxygen Not Included, which I strongly recommend as one of the pillars of a high school engineering curriculum. I’ve previously discussed the importance of studying engineering, including the topic of fluid mechanics, within the homeschool environment.
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