I have been working with a student from Mechelen Technical School (near Antwerp), Belgium on an asteroid project. The student contacted me about using the "Making Craters " activity as part of year long project for final year of secondary school. He has just submitted his dissertation and has presented it to a judging panel. Here are his experiences
"First of all I used the Impact Calculator to check my calculations were correct. It was really helpful to find any mistakes I had made (I needed to correct my calculations a few times). Secondly I searched for an existing asteroid on the NASA database and I entered all of its parameters into the Impact Calculator and checked what happens if he haves an impact with the earth.
Next I did some tests with it: Each time I used all the same parameters and only changed only 1 parameter at a time so I could see what the influence was.
And at my final presentation I used it to show the judging panel how what would happen if an asteroid impacted on there home city and our school. The panel was really impressed (one of them screamed "no, no, not at my house").
The Impact Calculator helped me really allot with my final work, it gave me a push to go for it and make the best of it, and it's a great piece of engineering.
I really like the part where you see the impact crater and can compare it with buildings. Unlucky that you can't see the difference between a simple crater and complex crater, also I think the height of the 'Empire state building is wrong'. (381 m instead of 449 m) but these things or for the next version.
I want to thank Dr. Gomez and his colleagues for helping me out with the questions I had.
Greatings Nelis Vandermeiren"
