Assessing the impact of video game based design projects in a first year engineering design course

Introductory engineering design courses are an opportunity to engage and encourage first-year engineering students. In one such course, we implemented a novel student design project using a commercial video game. The game, Kerbal Space Program, is a simulation of rocket travel and provides a reasonably realistic representation of rocket propulsion and orbital mechanics. Teams of students were tasked with designing a rocket that could fly to the home planet's moon and return safely. The efficacy of the project was assessed using a pre- and post-activity survey, and results are compared with those from a larger-focus research project on the effectiveness of toys in the classroom.