Purpose: This was a summer project supported by the Oregon Space Grant Consortium. My personal goal was to gain experience in making games, especially simulations. The institutional goal of the project was to develop a simple simulation of a solar sailing craft to serve as an educational tool on the principles of orbital mechanics and solar sailing. This was based on my own experiences with games whose mechanics are based on real-world physics; it offers a powerful intuitive understanding of the subject with relatively low barriers to entry.
Methodology: This simulation was built in Godot, an open-source game engine under the MIT license. The project leveraged Godot’s built-in physics engine, which streamlined development significantly. During my initial planning stage, I set several points where I would force myself to start over and attempt different approaches, which allowed me to restructure the project as I learned more about how to best structure the project within the Godot engine.
Results: The simulation was a success, but the scope is limited; this is mostly due to my lack of experience with the Godot engine. However, if you told me to publish it, I could push it out in a week or two.
Conclusion: I may not continue work on this project, but I hope to keep developing simulations like this in the near future. If my professors allow it, I will do something very much like this for my senior project.