ALEF Mars Project

Compare 2 - Orbit
“Target: Mars”
Orbit and Video
Objective: To launch a rocket from Earth and land on Mars on June 1st, 2021.

Requirement: To land on Mars, the rocket must intercept the orbit of Mars as it
revolves around the sun. What is the path of the Red Planet’s orbit?

Users choose the “Compare to Earth” icon and then “Orbit”

Icon should be a small planet with an ellipse around it. Header to identify that
students are in Compare to Earth -> Orbit

Students are shown a video/gif

of the earth’s orbit around the sun - rough sample -->

Orbit Activity
After watching the video/gif, students are prompted:

Are you ready to go into orbit? Have a button for students to start the activity

When students click on the button they should see on screen a video/gif of earth
orbiting the sun similar to one below
Orbit Activity
The video/gif of Earth orbiting the sun should now be a still picture (below)

https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1DWqHuUffFyIuiVkhpROBEqi0DQKoOwE5ho
aYeOT_610/edit

Students are now given tools to place & draw with:

4 tools to draw the orbital path of Mars

Circular The goal with the orbital paths is that students

should be able to place them in different areas on
the screen. For the paths they should be able to
Elliptical adjust the size by dragging farther away from the
center. There should be measurements about the
Earth orbit (distance to sun, total path distance,
etc.)
Orbit Activity
When students click on the orbit icon they should be given the option to place it
somewhere on the screen.

When clicking on the path options students should be prompted with a message
before allowing them to draw the path on the image:

This is a circular orbit pattern

This is an elliptical orbit pattern

Each of these orbital paths should have Mars on them. Also there should be 2 for
each path type, one with arrows going one direction and another with arrows
going the other direction.
Orbit Activity
After selecting and placing their orbit, a simulation should run showing if they
intersected with the orbit or not.

If successful (based on the scoring criteria on the last slide) the rocket would
follow the orbit of Mars showing the date of June 1st, 2021.

If unsuccessful, the rocket would continue traveling into space. Show the students
where Mars would be when passing through the orbital path with the date June
1st, 2021.
Orbit Activity
After submitting the their sample orbit pathway, the students are provided a score
for each and a total score on a Summary Page.

We don’t want to give the answers to each so there is potential for repeated
gameplay, but we should represent how close they were to perfect for the chosen
path type. Correct Path Direction Distance to Accuracy
per/aph

Ellipse (20%) Same as Earth Ratio 78-88%

(20%)