Mentoring and Teaching

I'd like to offer an endorsement of [Orbital Mechanics 1]. My DYS 13 yo 2E son just finished it. He's very into math, but didn't have very much programming experience.

He absolutely *loved* it. There was certainly homework (which was novel for my kid), and a few weekends where he'd spend a whole afternoon working on it, but he was quite into it and I didn't really have to prod him. He did find the programming aspect challenging, but only shed a few tears and ultimately found that aspect also interesting.

Mr. Comstock was well organized--started on time, sent out & graded assignments, and held office hours for extra help on HW. He provided a summary of grades and a certificate of participation at the end.

I asked my son for his review and he said [Eric] was "funny, funny, funny, funny, and he's darn tootin' good at teaching. P.S. He's also funny." I'm not quite sure what jokes are cracked about orbital mechanics, but I guess Eric was also good at engaging kids as kids :)

So, ringing endorsement from our end!

My already heavily tasked son was a bit concerned about having this Orbital Mechanics Online Class with Eric Comstock. We were concerned too, since we did not know what to expect. Well, the class was definitely unlike anything my son had taken. The first couple of weeks were really a challenge since my son has not yet taken Calculus and is in the middle of a Pre-Calculus class. Mr. Comstock did a great job of presenting the challenging material and giving opportunities for feedback and interaction. Within a couple of weeks my son went from sitting quietly, not interacting, and trying to research answers on his own, to coming out of his shell and actually interacting with Mr. Comstock. As a result of this, he has gained a lot of confidence in his math abilities. Mr. Comstock taught him how to apply Calculus to the various lessons that he had. This is really helping us to better plan our son's classes next year when he becomes a [high school] freshman. These short online courses, which last only a few weeks, can give a lifetime of momentum. We listen in sometimes, especially early in the process, and we can appreciate the kind, understanding way Mr. Comstock interacts with his students. Like I said, this has become a large step in the long path that our son has to take in to becoming a functional adult who is able to handle these highly intellectual pursuits. We had trouble making time for this class, which was found by an engineer family member and recommended to us, but we are seeing results, and we can truly say it has been worth the investment. Thank you, Mr. Comstock.

For the last 6 months, Eric has been teaching my 14 year old son a weekly enrichment class on aerospace engineering, and my son has loved every minute of it. Eric taught him the Python coding skills as well as the math and physics he needed to compute the path of a space shuttle launch and return. Eric was able to explain advanced topics in a way that my son found very accessible and he was always great with answering questions. My son's comments about the lessons are "I learn a lot and they are really fun." He also regularly finds applications for what Eric taught him in other academic areas, such as math class and Mathletes competitions. Working with Eric is definitely a highlight of my son's week and has solidified his ambition to study aerospace engineering in college.

My 10 year old son worked with Eric on programming in Python and HTML editing for 4 months, and learned a lot about it. Eric provided my son with help and constructive feedback on projects. One of the projects involved coding a calculator, and Eric taught my son how to use operators and the float functions. They made 3D graphs in Python which was very interesting for him to learn. My son learned how to edit HTML websites and was able to apply this knowledge to his own website. My son found Eric extremely knowledgeable in computer science, fun to learn with, and felt that they have a lot in common.