aSIMetric’s entertainment-centric approach is designed to capture that initial interest. Children are tough customers, entertainment provides the competitive edge in a world competing for our children’s attention. We need a unique solution, with unique architecture, we need Decisive Impact And Emotional Engagement. To be able to compete, aSIMetric is engineering an immersive, high-fidelity aerospace simulation, combining aviation and space exploration into a single experience. A high impact engaging and memorable informal learning experiences. An experience designed to maximise emotional engagement.  An engineered tool, using the well understood phenomena of entertainment, as our Trojan horse, to broaden the catch net, and encourage more young people to engage.

aSIMetric understands it is about the experience, an experience that is truly immersive. Sight, sound, touch and smell, in a fully immersive tactile and kinetic environment. This is collaboration between engineering and art. The hardware and corresponding software form the technical crux of the commercial program. The motion platform would be used to simulate both atmospheric flight and orbit, accentuating manoeuvres such as acceleration and deceleration. The next component to consider is the cabin and flight deck. Everything that happens, the entire mission architecture, has to happen from that flight deck. The internal environment requires a good level of fidelity to create a full, immersive, tactile experience; it needs to look, feel and sound as close to reality as possible. An experience made all the more meaningful, if we incorporate a social, or team based, design element. The simulator is built around a team, or flight crew, of four. This gives us a shared experience, between friends or family members. Unlike VR experiences designed around the individual, our classroom of the future is VR built around a team layers of immersion. An adventure played out in a virtual sandbox universe providing great depth, enabling long-term engagement, shaping virtual career options. A system that allows the team to write the story of how they, as a team of four friends, explored and conquered the universe. It is a narrative soaked in experience, lessons hard-learned, battles lost and won. 

Instead of traditional, large-scale centralised institutions, we envision a compact, easily maintained, and cost-effective distributed system. This allows us to scale down on costly infrastructure while scaling up virtual, and interactive experiences. Our compact system can be deployed in various population centers, overcoming traditional barriers of travel and cost. This greatly increases accessibility for the public and children that often don’t get these opportunities. This shifts from the focus, of large informal STEM institution, from high passthrough, high-volume of visitors and "hope something sticks" approach, to a more focused, emotionally engaging strategy. Particularly well-suited for smaller population centers. Reduced passthrough, but with more impactful content, aSIMetric aims for a greater probability of meaningful engagement. Servicing numerous population centers with our flexible and versatile approach will ultimately lead to more effective distributed passthrough and greater cultural penetration over time.

Aviation and space exploration inherently captivate the public's imagination, offering an unparalleled gateway to a vast array of STEM topics. Through aerospace simulation, we can transform abstract scientific concepts into tangible, physical experiences. The future potential of space exploration, particularly its impact on youth, is often underestimated. The Space Race of the 1960s and 1970s, for example, ignited a massive educational boom in the United States. This era saw a threefold increase in STEM-related PhDs, not primarily due to educational policy, but because the public witnessed engineers dreaming, building, and achieving the seemingly impossible. People were profoundly inspired. As humanity prepares to return to the Moon and venture into deep space, a new era of inspiration is dawning. We all stand to benefit significantly as these real-world events influence younger generations. The future will see a generation motivated and inspired. We need mature programs ready to accommodate and capture that potential. With the advent of space tourism, the commercialization of space, and humanity's push beyond low Earth orbit, the next chapters in our history are rapidly approaching. Should we fail to have capable and mature capture strategies in place, waiting to accept the firestorm of enthusiasm that will follow, then we deserve the harshest judgment history will arrange.

Aerospace provides a golden opportunity as a capture strategy. A Capture, Hold, Connect approach, reimagined for the 21st century, converting visitors into active participants, an important distinction.  The 'capture' component is the entertainment interface with the public. Unlike most informal STEM programs like coding or robotics, aSIMetric leans in to entertainment to widen the catch net and not just preach to the fan base.  Hold, or nurture is the implementation of long-term programs leaning on narrative, long term distant goals, always just out of reach. A unique team based adventure to distant worlds and discoveries. On the back end of our capture strategy are the ecosystems that dovetail with formal and informal education organizations across a given nation.  aSIMetric is designed as both a capture strategy and a local STEAM education resource, requiring and facilitating broad community ecosystems. aSIMetric understands that quality science learning is best supported through a robust cohesive community-wide ecosystem. It is not a stand-alone program, gone are the days we work alone, the STEAM community is a team effort. 

Inspired by Professor Sugata Mitra's 'Hole in the wall’ experiments, first carried out in 1999, and his teams work into SOLEs, Self-organizing learning environments. We understood self learning and discovery are powerful educational strategies. 

Further studies, based on these surprising experiments, found that such self-learning principles, gave rise to deep learning. Those students invested in the experience, and the process of discovery, rather than being taught traditionally, showed the children retained the knowledge better. Follow on experiments concluded that there are many ways education can be effective, outside the state education system, and the importance of self-learning and self-organization can lead to emergent properties with very positive results. 

Professor Mitra, later optimized classroom conditions, to encourage effective self-learning environments. Confirming that children in small groups, of four to six, proved optimal. This approach, produced what were referred to as SOLEs, Self-organizing learning environments. Many, such programs were established in classrooms around the world.  However, these approaches are not easily applicable, to state school curriculums. As such, the concept was not widely adopted. It became clear, very quickly, the difficulty working with state education.  This led to the aSIMetric team forming an informal educational program, as a nonprofit.  

We view our flight decks and cabins as classrooms of the future. Many elements, of Professor Mitra’s work, played a prominent role, in shaping our ideas. New ways we might better engage children, with long-term, Informal entertainment-centric educational programs. We envision our simulated environments, optimised for a team of four students, as compact classrooms or SOLE’s.