High-Level Project Summary
Have you ever thought of having Space and the Universe at your fingertips?Have you thought what it would be like to fly in a spaceship and see the Earth from space?With OddisseyLear you will go through all experiences and gain knowledge on the Universe and space.OddisseyLearn is a video game platform designed to connect the five scientific disciplines of NASA (Earth Sciences, Astrophysics, Heliophysics, Planetary Sciences and Biological and Physical Sciences), and has the purpose of communicating them through different challenges, questions and mini-games that are available to people of all ages.It responds to a didactic, simple, and innovative way of communicating and teaching.
Link to Project "Demo"
Link to Final Project
Detailed Project Description
Our video game platform contains a branch of mini games, questions, challenges, experiment labs, and other experiences.These games will be available to anyone. It will be customizable according to the age and profession of the user, and will offer a diversity of themes (many everyday ones) ranging from (economy, history to complete this). Once the theme is chosen, it will direct the user to the games available in that section. In our presentation, we show an example of a game "Catch apples with Newton". The character in this mini game is Newton and we must direct him so that no apple falls. We relate this to gravity and Planetary Sciences. To prototype our solution we use the Marvel App, which allows us to interact with the different functions.We hope to develop the video game for a longer time in the not too distant future, and to improve other functions.
Current functions:
- Choice of themes and games
- Lessons and connection of disciplines at the end of the games
- NASA Citizen Science Opportunities.
Who does it benefit? Why is learning these types of disciplines important?This video game platform is intended for people of all ages, having the purpose of inspiring future generations to enter the world of Science and STEAM, to ignite amazement in small people but also in adults, to make known and allow the development of connections between the scientific disciplines of NASA in a didactic and simple way, and to cultivate the ability to ask and the curiosity, characteristics of scientific thinking.
But why is it important? Why is our solution a video game?
Not only do we know that today more than ever we need a didactic and accessible science, but we also need to make connections between the disciplines that comprise it, allowing us to develop the ability to solve problems that matter in our daily lives, and connect the drivers of scientific innovation.
That is why our platform connects experiences, challenges and mini-games of different kinds with knowledge of the different scientific disciplines mentioned above, inspiring young people and adults to get involved in this wonderful world, and to learn more about the disciplines of NASA.
Why did we decide to create this solution?
In most children, from an early age, curiosity and wondering about everything becomes frequent. In our case, asking ourselves about the Universe and all its mysteries was an aspect that today forms part of our identity.
But from our place, as students from Argentina, we also know that the teaching of science and the aerospace field does not have so much support in our country, nor does it have so much diffusion and connection between different disciplines in order to understand the world of science and of aerospace activities.
That said, we are convinced that building and communicating science through a video game is not only revolutionary, but inspiring for millions of people who once dreamed of getting closer to space and the universe.
Space Agency Data
To proceed with this solution, we investigated NASA resources, learned and studied Earth Sciences, Astrophysics, Heliophysics, Planetary Sciences, and Biological and Physical Sciences, in order to deepen our knowledge and establish relationships. We interviewed and got in contact with our public, children, adolescents, adults, teachers and people from different professions, in order to verify the didactic forms that might interest them. But the most shocking thing was that the majority said that at least once in their life they would have wanted to have more access to aerospace knowledge including all its fields.
We are informed about the teaching of science today and the retrograde look that many countries have regarding it. In addition to teaching disciplines such as Astronomy and Astrophysics. We managed to understand the relationship between gamification, teaching and didactics of science in order to communicate it in an easily understandable and fun way for any age and degree of knowledge.
Hackathon Journey
We all agreed on our team that it was our first hackathon, and it is a great challenge for us.
What we highlight the most is teamwork, when we had moments of breaking and not knowing what to do or how to face development, we knew how to support and encourage each other together to continue with this great challenge that lasted 48 hours, but for us only 24 hours.We take with us very nice friends, knowledge and learnings that will last us a lifetime. We met scientists from other parts of the world who inspired us and made us grow.
We are convinced that we created this idea with all our effort and commitment, and our passion will make us bring it to reality so that science and the work of NASA is available to everyone.
References
nasa.gov website
https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/what-is-gravity/en/
https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system
https://insights.learnlight.com/en/articles/5-benefits-of-gamification-in-learning/
NASA Space Place- NASA Science for kids
Science Mission Directorate
Specials Ocean-worlds
Nasa Science Live
Nasa toolkits
Didactics of Science: the forgotten dimension in Science Education
Didactics As a Design Science
Tags
#science, #videogames, #democratizationofscience
Global Judging
This project has been submitted for consideration during the Judging process.