8 ms·

FAA K-12 Airport Design Challenge in Minecraft

250 points by jcalvinowens 4y ago

fallingmeat 4y ago
That’s brilliant! Very cool way to inspire. Next they can move on to TERPS procedure design! haha
- leetrout 4y ago
  Just 500 pages of light reading material https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Order/Order_8260.3D_vs3.pdf https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Order/Order_8260.3...
  - GalenErso 4y ago
    Which jobs require one to read and understand this material?
    - fallingmeat 4y ago
      procedure design. if you want to design your own approach procedure, for example. or if you are designing a takeoff/landing facility.
      - GalenErso 4y ago
        "Procedure design" isn't a job title. Do you mean procedure designer? And how many people in the U.S. work in designing landing and takeoff facilities?
        fallingmeat 4y ago
        yep. good question! no idea
        nickmc 4y ago
        In the UK, the CAA approves procedure design organisations - listed here [0]. There are 8 and several are only a couple of people. Even the large ones probably only have 4 people max actual IFP designers. The total involved in the UK probably does not exceed 25. You could scale US according to the number of IFP airports. [0] https://www.caa.co.uk/data-and-analysis/approved-persons-and-organisations/approved-organisations/approved-instrument-flight-procedures-design-organisations/ https://www.caa.co.uk/data-and-analysis/approved-persons-and...
    - Twirrim 4y ago
      a relative of mine was involved in developing the eSIM standards, working with a consortium of telcos and phone manufacturers. For whatever reason, docs like that one are something he just loves to both read and produce. Diving in deep to a topic, finding every rough edge, corner case, undefined bit of behaviour and getting consensus from involved parties. I think I'd rather bash my head repeatedly against a brick wall, but somehow he finds it a lot of fun.
      - dylan604 4y ago
        didn't you just describe developing a large scale software package that is user facing?
    - ajcp 4y ago
      I'm a Solutions Architect -albeit in software- and I LOVE documentation like that. I will spend days and weeks consuming esoterica on even the most "simple" of specifications (looking at you JSON). I'll spend hours just ruminating after reading a single concept for a protocol. Partly because I enjoy it and partly because it's my job. I need to understand not just how the code works, but the implications and implementations of it. I also need to be able to explain all of it at varying levels of detail in both technical and non-technical terms.
nharada 4y ago
This is awesome, reminds me of First Robotics Lego League. Kids are smart, and meeting them halfway using a UX they already understand is a great way to get them involved!
- smoldesu 4y ago
  I loved participating in Lego League growing up. The key is that the building/iteration itself is a form of play, which locks adults out of the conversation and forces technical solutions, often requiring teamwork to overcome. Everyone wants to be the rockstar, but Lego League forced you to develop collaboration skills. It's a shame most of that magic wears off in the high school level FRC competitions. It's still fun and a great learning experience, but people take it way too seriously. Our team would go up against NASA-sponsored robots or people who borrowed Toyota schematics for their drivetrain. After a certain level, it becomes less about what the kids are capable of and more about who has the most connections/highest funding. Of course, the fun was never the winning for either program. It's just funny to me that Legos did such a good job of gatekeeping those meddlesome adults, and now Minecraft might do the same.
  - elteto 4y ago
    FRC at HS level has become an important credential for Ivy League admissions, with all the downsides that come with it. It’s incredibly difficult to compete with private schools with almost unlimited funding, bankrolled by b/millionaire parents. As a metric is almost useless now.
  - Operyl 4y ago
    I was in Texas and would have to compete against these teams really early. It kind of sucked, we had a pretty good design imho but we just got steamrolled early.
dag11 4y ago
This is so fun! I'd have loved this as a kid. Brilliant idea.
artificial 4y ago
This is a creative idea and a great medium to explore concepts in. Kudos!
Southworth 4y ago
This is really awesome, and I think such a great way to engage kds! Epic work, and kudos to the FAA for having the vision to engage in this way. Government is not renowned for it’s creativity.
dsukhin 4y ago
This is an amazing educational experience for students but it is also such a great way to crowd source hyper realistic 3D world replicas - it reminds me of the Minecraft replica of MIT that cropped up at the start of COVID. I really hope they open source and preserve all the work of these students on a combined server anyone can browse. It would be even more amazing if we ended up in a world where we basically open source public infrastructure projects so that anyone could contribute ideas and/or solicit public comment on new concepts before we invest billions of dollars of public money. It also immediately comes to mind that Microsoft develops MS flight simulator - could proposed airport innovations be paired with it to test how pilots feel about changes to layouts or e.g. how new runways may affect air traffic and other patterns? Very cool.
- reaperducer 4y ago
  I really hope they open source and preserve all the work of these students on a combined server anyone can browse. Since it's illegal for the U.S. government to copyright things†, I guess it's up to each individual student to decide on a license. † Sadly, this is not true for state and local governments.
- nexuist 4y ago
  > could proposed airport innovations be paired with it to test how pilots feel about changes to layouts or e.g. how new runways may affect air traffic and other patterns? This is a great idea. You could change the layout in the game and then monitor pilot behavior through e.g. VATSIM to see if it makes operations too confusing or if they can adjust easily. And if hobbyists can figure out, it should be safe for trained professionals to work with.
sharkweek 4y ago
A question for the crowd! What’s a good age to show a kid Minecraft? My son is five and loves LEGO and broadly anything construction, I’d be curious to know at what age it might be fun to show him Minecraft. He’s not bad at playing some simple platformers et al on the PlayStation but for some reason Minecraft feels maybe a year or two off. Curious what folks here think.
- EwanToo 4y ago
  Depends a lot on the child but I'd say 7 or 8 they'll probably be able to play the basic game by themselves. At 5 or 6 they'll likely need a fair bit of support, but that's a lot of fun too.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- reaperducer 4y ago
  My son is five and loves LEGO and broadly anything construction Lego is awesome for teaching kids to think in so many different, wonderful ways. If you want to teach your kid how to cope with failure, disappointment, and minor lacerations, get him an Erector set.
  - sharkweek 4y ago
    Lol as a child raised in the fire of hell that was erector sets, I didn’t even know they still made those. I’ll have to get some for my son for him to experience the same trauma I did.
    - dylan604 4y ago
      I grew up with a bit safer erector set inspired set called Construx. All plastic with much softer corners/edges! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construx https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construx
    - jfk13 4y ago
carabiner 4y ago
Children yearn for the mines.
arrosenberg 4y ago
Well, basically I just copied the airport we have now. Then, I added some fins to lower wind resistance. And this racing stripe here I feel is pretty sharp. https://comb.io/2ViK7Z https://comb.io/2ViK7Z
michaelgiba 4y ago
This is refreshing!
germinalphrase 4y ago
I enjoy video games just fine as an adult, but I have an instinctive resistance to the idea of introducing them to my son (<5-years-old). At what age did you allow your kid to start playing? When they start school and learn about them from others?
- dabeeeenster 4y ago
  For my daughter it was around 9 or 10. Games these days are way more addictive than they used to be. I think any younger than that and its hard to reason with kids about what's going on in their heads. Also had zero tolerance to things like iPads, phones etc in our home. When out at grandparents/friends etc then fine, but never, ever at home or in the car, on a plane, in a restaurant etc. Seeing families sit down at a restaurant and then they just chuck the 4 y/o an iPad for the entire dinner makes me sad.
- NegativeLatency 4y ago
  Obviously it’s changed a bit from the 90s but I think I wasn’t irreparably harmed from playing say “Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo” as a 5 year old. I don’t plan on giving my kid unfettered access to the internet but I really enjoyed using computers as a kid and I think it’s a big part of why I ended up being an engineer today.
- borski 4y ago
  You just have to be careful about what the games are. I wouldn’t hand them the App Store and say “have fun,” but lots of games are spectacular for young kids. Hell, hacking video games when I was an early teenager is how I developed an entire career in vuln research and exploit dev, and eventually started and sold a cybersecurity company. Video games literally handed me my career because I had fun breaking them. You never know where interests will lead. You just want to stay away from “FarmVille” and similar games that make it impossible to do anything but play the game.
- carabiner 4y ago
  You should be resistant. Kids should be outside playing and interacting with other kids. Take him to a rock climbing gym. Take him on hikes.
cbxyp 4y ago
New airport designers are badly needed, seems to me 12-year olds may be better suited to the task than the construction companies contracted currently! https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/sea-tac-airports-new-1b-international-terminal-too-tight-a-squeeze-for-20-big-jets/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/sea-t...
- bluescrn 4y ago
  Isn't the era of air travel coming to an end due to climate change? The winning airport design will probably be an ex-airport, returned to nature as a forest, or repurposed as a solar/wind farm.
  - erur 4y ago
    Either you've missed the /s at the end or you know a lot more about some massive recent advances in tunnel drilling and construction compared to the public.
  - senbrow 4y ago
    Just because it's bad for the planet doesn't mean it's stopping any time soon. The tragedy of the commons is real, regardless of how irrational or selfish it may seem.
  - nonethewiser 4y ago
    Air travel is a major contributor to climate change. I’m curious why people think the government shouldn’t limit it.
    - fnordpiglet 4y ago
      Should and will are two different things. “You can never visit your family in your homeland again” doesn’t win votes, and is slightly less competitive than “you’ll only ever go on vacation in your local environment.” I sort of suspect the answer here, as with all things, isn’t command but alternatives. Hydrogen and EV aircraft are nascent. Nuclear air craft exist, and can be built with modern miniature reactors that are entirely safe. The problem is funding goes more towards killing varied brown people than improving technology.
UltimateFloofy 4y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VppcLH0Mhs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VppcLH0Mhs The kids presenting IAD do a pretty good job breaking down the airport for their age! I'm impressed.
lamroger 4y ago
My cousin is going into civil engineering because of Minecraft and Sim City
bmitc 4y ago
I don't really have much to say other than this is very awesome. A fun, playful but serious and engaging project and competition.
adolph 4y ago
I for one look forward to a red stone powered ATC
abraxas 4y ago
Is it open to kids outside the US?
adanto6840 4y ago
Shameless plug for my game SimAirport: https://store.steampowered.com/app/598330/SimAirport/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/598330/SimAirport/ I've actually received emails from two academic professors/teachers (collegiate level) who used the game in some form/fashion, as a tool within their courses. If anyone has an educational use-case for SimAirport, I'd love to hear about it. I'd also be willing to consider providing "site" licenses, or figuring out a license that would work for you, for any solid educational use-cases -- feel free to contact me directly, email is on profile. :)
- marklubi 4y ago
  Thanks for sharing. Looks like a pretty interesting sim! Now, I just need to figure out how to find time to play it.
syngrog66 4y ago
flashbacks to the time I wrote up a speculative proposal to win a NASA/FAA SBIR phase 1 grant. related to airport sims (one we hoped was relatively novel, compared to prior efforts.) my partner and I at the time ultimately decided not to submit. but we (well, mostly me) put a lot of R&D time into it

250 points by jcalvinowens 4y ago

fallingmeat 4y ago

That’s brilliant! Very cool way to inspire. Next they can move on to TERPS procedure design! haha

leetrout 4y ago
Just 500 pages of light reading material https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Order/Order_8260.3D_vs3.pdf https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Order/Order_8260.3...
- GalenErso 4y ago
  Which jobs require one to read and understand this material?
  - fallingmeat 4y ago
    procedure design. if you want to design your own approach procedure, for example. or if you are designing a takeoff/landing facility.
    - GalenErso 4y ago
      "Procedure design" isn't a job title. Do you mean procedure designer? And how many people in the U.S. work in designing landing and takeoff facilities?
      - fallingmeat 4y ago
        yep. good question! no idea
        nickmc 4y ago
        In the UK, the CAA approves procedure design organisations - listed here [0]. There are 8 and several are only a couple of people. Even the large ones probably only have 4 people max actual IFP designers. The total involved in the UK probably does not exceed 25. You could scale US according to the number of IFP airports. [0] https://www.caa.co.uk/data-and-analysis/approved-persons-and-organisations/approved-organisations/approved-instrument-flight-procedures-design-organisations/ https://www.caa.co.uk/data-and-analysis/approved-persons-and...
  - Twirrim 4y ago
    a relative of mine was involved in developing the eSIM standards, working with a consortium of telcos and phone manufacturers. For whatever reason, docs like that one are something he just loves to both read and produce. Diving in deep to a topic, finding every rough edge, corner case, undefined bit of behaviour and getting consensus from involved parties. I think I'd rather bash my head repeatedly against a brick wall, but somehow he finds it a lot of fun.
    - dylan604 4y ago
      didn't you just describe developing a large scale software package that is user facing?
  - ajcp 4y ago
    I'm a Solutions Architect -albeit in software- and I LOVE documentation like that. I will spend days and weeks consuming esoterica on even the most "simple" of specifications (looking at you JSON). I'll spend hours just ruminating after reading a single concept for a protocol. Partly because I enjoy it and partly because it's my job. I need to understand not just how the code works, but the implications and implementations of it. I also need to be able to explain all of it at varying levels of detail in both technical and non-technical terms.

nharada 4y ago

This is awesome, reminds me of First Robotics Lego League. Kids are smart, and meeting them halfway using a UX they already understand is a great way to get them involved!

smoldesu 4y ago
I loved participating in Lego League growing up. The key is that the building/iteration itself is a form of play, which locks adults out of the conversation and forces technical solutions, often requiring teamwork to overcome. Everyone wants to be the rockstar, but Lego League forced you to develop collaboration skills. It's a shame most of that magic wears off in the high school level FRC competitions. It's still fun and a great learning experience, but people take it way too seriously. Our team would go up against NASA-sponsored robots or people who borrowed Toyota schematics for their drivetrain. After a certain level, it becomes less about what the kids are capable of and more about who has the most connections/highest funding. Of course, the fun was never the winning for either program. It's just funny to me that Legos did such a good job of gatekeeping those meddlesome adults, and now Minecraft might do the same.
- elteto 4y ago
  FRC at HS level has become an important credential for Ivy League admissions, with all the downsides that come with it. It’s incredibly difficult to compete with private schools with almost unlimited funding, bankrolled by b/millionaire parents. As a metric is almost useless now.
- Operyl 4y ago
  I was in Texas and would have to compete against these teams really early. It kind of sucked, we had a pretty good design imho but we just got steamrolled early.

dag11 4y ago

This is so fun! I'd have loved this as a kid. Brilliant idea.

artificial 4y ago

This is a creative idea and a great medium to explore concepts in. Kudos!

Southworth 4y ago

This is really awesome, and I think such a great way to engage kds! Epic work, and kudos to the FAA for having the vision to engage in this way. Government is not renowned for it’s creativity.

dsukhin 4y ago

This is an amazing educational experience for students but it is also such a great way to crowd source hyper realistic 3D world replicas - it reminds me of the Minecraft replica of MIT that cropped up at the start of COVID. I really hope they open source and preserve all the work of these students on a combined server anyone can browse. It would be even more amazing if we ended up in a world where we basically open source public infrastructure projects so that anyone could contribute ideas and/or solicit public comment on new concepts before we invest billions of dollars of public money. It also immediately comes to mind that Microsoft develops MS flight simulator - could proposed airport innovations be paired with it to test how pilots feel about changes to layouts or e.g. how new runways may affect air traffic and other patterns? Very cool.

reaperducer 4y ago
I really hope they open source and preserve all the work of these students on a combined server anyone can browse. Since it's illegal for the U.S. government to copyright things†, I guess it's up to each individual student to decide on a license. † Sadly, this is not true for state and local governments.
nexuist 4y ago
> could proposed airport innovations be paired with it to test how pilots feel about changes to layouts or e.g. how new runways may affect air traffic and other patterns? This is a great idea. You could change the layout in the game and then monitor pilot behavior through e.g. VATSIM to see if it makes operations too confusing or if they can adjust easily. And if hobbyists can figure out, it should be safe for trained professionals to work with.

sharkweek 4y ago

A question for the crowd! What’s a good age to show a kid Minecraft? My son is five and loves LEGO and broadly anything construction, I’d be curious to know at what age it might be fun to show him Minecraft. He’s not bad at playing some simple platformers et al on the PlayStation but for some reason Minecraft feels maybe a year or two off. Curious what folks here think.

EwanToo 4y ago
Depends a lot on the child but I'd say 7 or 8 they'll probably be able to play the basic game by themselves. At 5 or 6 they'll likely need a fair bit of support, but that's a lot of fun too.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
reaperducer 4y ago
My son is five and loves LEGO and broadly anything construction Lego is awesome for teaching kids to think in so many different, wonderful ways. If you want to teach your kid how to cope with failure, disappointment, and minor lacerations, get him an Erector set.
- sharkweek 4y ago
  Lol as a child raised in the fire of hell that was erector sets, I didn’t even know they still made those. I’ll have to get some for my son for him to experience the same trauma I did.
  - dylan604 4y ago
    I grew up with a bit safer erector set inspired set called Construx. All plastic with much softer corners/edges! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construx https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construx
  - jfk13 4y ago

carabiner 4y ago

Children yearn for the mines.

arrosenberg 4y ago

Well, basically I just copied the airport we have now. Then, I added some fins to lower wind resistance. And this racing stripe here I feel is pretty sharp. https://comb.io/2ViK7Z https://comb.io/2ViK7Z

michaelgiba 4y ago

This is refreshing!

germinalphrase 4y ago

I enjoy video games just fine as an adult, but I have an instinctive resistance to the idea of introducing them to my son (<5-years-old). At what age did you allow your kid to start playing? When they start school and learn about them from others?

dabeeeenster 4y ago
For my daughter it was around 9 or 10. Games these days are way more addictive than they used to be. I think any younger than that and its hard to reason with kids about what's going on in their heads. Also had zero tolerance to things like iPads, phones etc in our home. When out at grandparents/friends etc then fine, but never, ever at home or in the car, on a plane, in a restaurant etc. Seeing families sit down at a restaurant and then they just chuck the 4 y/o an iPad for the entire dinner makes me sad.
NegativeLatency 4y ago
Obviously it’s changed a bit from the 90s but I think I wasn’t irreparably harmed from playing say “Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo” as a 5 year old. I don’t plan on giving my kid unfettered access to the internet but I really enjoyed using computers as a kid and I think it’s a big part of why I ended up being an engineer today.
borski 4y ago
You just have to be careful about what the games are. I wouldn’t hand them the App Store and say “have fun,” but lots of games are spectacular for young kids. Hell, hacking video games when I was an early teenager is how I developed an entire career in vuln research and exploit dev, and eventually started and sold a cybersecurity company. Video games literally handed me my career because I had fun breaking them. You never know where interests will lead. You just want to stay away from “FarmVille” and similar games that make it impossible to do anything but play the game.
carabiner 4y ago
You should be resistant. Kids should be outside playing and interacting with other kids. Take him to a rock climbing gym. Take him on hikes.

cbxyp 4y ago

New airport designers are badly needed, seems to me 12-year olds may be better suited to the task than the construction companies contracted currently! https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/sea-tac-airports-new-1b-international-terminal-too-tight-a-squeeze-for-20-big-jets/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/sea-t...

bluescrn 4y ago
Isn't the era of air travel coming to an end due to climate change? The winning airport design will probably be an ex-airport, returned to nature as a forest, or repurposed as a solar/wind farm.
- erur 4y ago
  Either you've missed the /s at the end or you know a lot more about some massive recent advances in tunnel drilling and construction compared to the public.
- senbrow 4y ago
  Just because it's bad for the planet doesn't mean it's stopping any time soon. The tragedy of the commons is real, regardless of how irrational or selfish it may seem.
- nonethewiser 4y ago
  Air travel is a major contributor to climate change. I’m curious why people think the government shouldn’t limit it.
  - fnordpiglet 4y ago
    Should and will are two different things. “You can never visit your family in your homeland again” doesn’t win votes, and is slightly less competitive than “you’ll only ever go on vacation in your local environment.” I sort of suspect the answer here, as with all things, isn’t command but alternatives. Hydrogen and EV aircraft are nascent. Nuclear air craft exist, and can be built with modern miniature reactors that are entirely safe. The problem is funding goes more towards killing varied brown people than improving technology.

UltimateFloofy 4y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VppcLH0Mhs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VppcLH0Mhs The kids presenting IAD do a pretty good job breaking down the airport for their age! I'm impressed.

lamroger 4y ago

My cousin is going into civil engineering because of Minecraft and Sim City

bmitc 4y ago

I don't really have much to say other than this is very awesome. A fun, playful but serious and engaging project and competition.

adolph 4y ago

I for one look forward to a red stone powered ATC

abraxas 4y ago

Is it open to kids outside the US?

adanto6840 4y ago

Shameless plug for my game SimAirport: https://store.steampowered.com/app/598330/SimAirport/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/598330/SimAirport/ I've actually received emails from two academic professors/teachers (collegiate level) who used the game in some form/fashion, as a tool within their courses. If anyone has an educational use-case for SimAirport, I'd love to hear about it. I'd also be willing to consider providing "site" licenses, or figuring out a license that would work for you, for any solid educational use-cases -- feel free to contact me directly, email is on profile. :)

marklubi 4y ago
Thanks for sharing. Looks like a pretty interesting sim! Now, I just need to figure out how to find time to play it.

syngrog66 4y ago

flashbacks to the time I wrote up a speculative proposal to win a NASA/FAA SBIR phase 1 grant. related to airport sims (one we hoped was relatively novel, compared to prior efforts.) my partner and I at the time ultimately decided not to submit. but we (well, mostly me) put a lot of R&D time into it