AeroEngineer: Race to Mars



WisdomTools, Inc. in partnership with Project Lead the Way, has developed AeroEngineer: Race to Mars. AeroEngineer is a space-themed serious game and curriculum package that WisdomTools designed make complex concepts related to aerospace engineering and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fun for high school students (grades 10-12).

AeroEngineer is based on national academic standards (i.e., NSES, ITEA, NCTM) and specific learning objectives focused on core aerospace concepts. It encourages student interest in engineering design by letting them design a space vehicle and choose engines and propulsion systems that help them win the game and learn how engineering impacts their space vehicle’s performance at the same time.

AeroEngineer players are on a mission from the Moon to Mars and get to choose defense, tourism, research, or green/environmental game tasks. Every mission requires the player to choose designs that will help them win. Students bid on contracts to fund their space vehicle for the race to Mars. Players also get to pick out a team from a diverse group of characters, and that team will help them and serve as their crew throughout the game. Each character is unique and players get to weight their areas of expertise, biases, and goals to create a space dream team.

Each team will have different goals in their missions. Some will be altruistic (i.e., having a social or environmental end goal) and others will focus on profit, research, or national security. All the teams will need to build a vehicle that achieves the mission’s requirements while maintaining a budget and using resources wisely. There is no one perfect design — instead, students have to think hard to weigh design and structure choices, and along the way learn to examine frame factors, design trade offs, and systems approaches to engineering.

AeroEngineer comes with the AeroEngineer Teacher Guide, which is packed with lesson plans, daily debriefing questions, homework assignments, slides, quizzes, and other teacher support tools for using and implementing the game in class. AeroEngineer can be used in both formal and informal education for one week of class time (i.e., five 50-minute class sessions, or an equivalent in block scheduling). It’s also great for summer camps and after school programs.

AeroEngineer has been funded, in part, by the National Science Foundation, Grant No. NSF IIP-1047122. Research and project outcomes are available upon request. For more information, contact Jamie Kirkley (Jamie@wisdomtools.com).