Space Talker: Lecturing to a Game Design Course

I get asked to do a lot of publicity events in my time in space. There aren’t too many astronauts knocking around Melbourne so I tend to get a few calls here and there to deliver talks, answer questions and feature in the media. I don’t attend all of them but the only thing I love more than being up in space is helping others to get there so when it’s educational I always try and find the time. I recently got an inquiry asking me to deliver a lecture to a group of students undertaking a game design course. Apparently they wanted me to provide some inspiration for the development of a game based in space. The game would see players complete various missions in order to complete a successful trip. The professor I spoke to said he had gathered his best technology students and wanted to give them a masterclass in creating and developing virtual realms for the game based on real life accounts. In other words, I think they wanted me to paint a picture of life in space so they could program a game transforming players from their living room to Mars. While preparing my notes I thought it would be best to cover some day to day tasks that could be missions for players to complete such as checking fuel levels, rewiring electrics and taking stock of food and supplies. I really enjoyed lecturing on the video game design course, Melbourne is such a young and creative city and whilst I may lack some of the technology based skills these youngsters possess we share a lot in our desire to continue learning and embracing the world around us. I ended up chatting to some of the video game design students for quite a while about life in space and they have promised to base a character on me!