UNA - HUMANA

https://youtu.be/Wl4xne0u47M

https://gomake.com.br/projetos/video/demo.mp4

What exactly does it do? 

The application Unilux of UNA - HUMANA was developed to socialize knowledge and spread Astronomy and Physics within the academic and non-academic community. Non-formal activities such as the app Unilux provide the user a new contact with Astronomy. 

The objective is to promote the interaction between the individuals involved and not in a rigid academic and curricular structure. Thus, users will have greater freedom to interact with the objects of the activities, being able to correlate Astronomy with their contexts and life experiences, as well as expand their relationships with these new objects. 

How does it work? 

The backend and front engineer created an application using real images provided by the Nasa Hubble satellite, with all this information given by the Space Apps Challenge. 

The UI/UX Designers began to study a color palette to draw the attention of the target audience, including teenagers, young adults, adults, and astronomers of Nasa or other space companies. As for the locations of the activities, it must be ensured that the selected location will allow a good view of the sky. Preferably in dark places, away from the light contamination of urban centers. 

It is also important that users have a smartphone at hand during the observations. 

Future improvements to the application may include an agenda to schedule talk wheels, an internal chat, a discussion forum to show the best pictures and start a new conversation or a study about the image, a connection with a GPS to indicate the position and coordinates of the user and the coordinates of the RADAR of the constellation, a space intended for the dissemination of samples, exhibitions, museums, planetariums, and traveling activities. The Space Adventure, a Nasa exposition in São Paulo (Brazil) is an example of a traveling exhibition and the Newton Freire Maia Science Park at Curitiba (Brazil) is an example of a permanent exhibition. 

Github: https://github.com/pydoni/nasa_space_apps_unilux

Pitch: https://youtu.be/Wl4xne0u47M

Demo: https://gomake.com.br/projetos/video/demo.mp4

Gif: https://gomake.com.br/projetos/video/Demogiff.gif

How We Developed This Project 

We chose this challenge to provide a good visual experience to our community. Our team is made up of passionate STEM communicators, developers, and designers who are creatively committed to delivering the best possible outcome for our audience. Our’s was a highly collaborative approach from ideating and making rough sketches to creatively designing and developing the core features and goals of the app. 

What benefits does it have? 

According to Carl Sagan, we are part of the life cycle of stars, we are made of stellar material and therefore astronomy tells our story, man has always sought answers to the events around him with so much of antiquity, curiosity, and observation that were already inherent to him. 

In addition, this app will provide social interaction between users and make them observe the sky together. According to Costa et al. 2018, among the challenges that negatively impact the science teaching-learning process in Brazil, we can consider:

a) the lack training of teachers in the area of science;

b) the lack of content of Astronomy in initial training courses;

c) teachers who teach subjects other than those in which they were trained;

d) the dissemination of non-scientific conceptions and conceptual flaws, and

e) historical conceptual errors brought by textbooks (Costa Junior et al, 2018).

The app was developed to be one more means of training students and people interested in the field of Astronomy.

The app seeks to fill these needs.

What do you hope to achieve? 

Due to the poor quality infrastructure of the schools and lack of access to expensive, unavailable equipment, or difficult to access for astronomy study, we created the Unilux app to be initially be used in the study of constellations, in real-time, with the use of IA- artificial intelligence, this solution aims to reach the most remote places arousing interest in science. 

This app will allow connections between people since we are greatly experiencing a technological revolution with the advancement of the internet and cell phones as communication devices. When this information is appropriated by people in their own empirical experience, it becomes knowledge. In our journey as human beings on this planet, the stars can continue to guide us and NASA data can be transformed into knowledge so that we can make better collective decisions. This app is developed for those who have their feet on the ground and their heads in the stars. Unilux came to revolutionize computer vision artificial intelligence to detect constellations. 

Furthermore, we are applying multimedia learning principles (Mayer, 2001). One of those principles considered that people learn better from words and pictures than from words alone. 

What tools, coding languages, hardware, or software did you use to develop your project? 

All the tools, software, and languages used for us to be able to develop this application were: 

1. Flutter 

2. Dart 

3. YoloV5 

4. Convolutional neural networks 

5. Adobe XD 

6. Figma 

7. Google Docs 

8. Google Slides 

Flutteris a framework for the development of mobile, web, and desktop applications.

Dartis a programming language used in the flutter framework. 

YoloV5is an open-source computer vision framework that makes convolutional neural networks to detect multiple objects in an image. 

Adobe XD is the Adobe prototyping tool for user experience and interaction designers. Adobe XD features are used for creating wireframes, prototypes, and screen designs for digital products such as websites and mobile apps. 

Figmais a web-based graphics editing and user interface design app. You can use it to do all kinds of graphic design work from wireframing websites, designing mobile app interfaces, and many more. 

Google Docsis an online word processor that lets you create and format documents and work with other people. 

Google Slidesis an online presentation app that lets you create and format presentations and work with other people. 

We made the choice to develop the application prototype based on the Orion constellation, as this constellation can be seen in both hemispheres and is one of the simplest to be seen and recognized. Thus, users can train the use of the app from this constellation. When one new information is appropriated by a user in their own empirical experience, it becomes a new knowledge for him. And knowledge is very much needed for mental paradigm shifts. 

In our journey as a human being on this planet, the stars can continue to guide us and NASA data can be transformed into knowledge so that we can make better collective decisions. This allows the connection between young people and the disclosure of information. 

For this, we used images from the gallery of NASA and other resources in two different situations: to train and feed the system for machine learning and AI assimilation (back-end process) and to illustrate the constellations to the users (front-end process). 

We can exemplify with the images of Orion extracted from the NASA website. Such as Orion Rainbow of Infrared Light (Nasa Images, 2012), Orion Nebula and Bow Shock (Nasa Images, 1999), The Sword of Orion (Nasa Images, 2006), Jupiter Ring with Orion (Nasa Images, 2017). Other than images, we also used a video “Sounds from Around the Milky Way” (Nasa Videos, 2020).

Our project started with the choice of the challenge and we decided by “Discovering Science Connections”, because we believe in the power of connections. 

After this step, we decided to choose the name of the team and we decided to call it UNA - HUMANA, because it means “union” and “human” in Portuguese. In Spanish, UNA also means one. If we are all one, we need to practice this concept. 

The word “HUMANA” was meticulously chosen to bring human value to the forefront. According to its etymology, the word human comes from the Latin word “humus” that means earth, ground or in an extended sense the planet Earth. 

The slogan of the team is “Connecting humans through Science”, because we believe that union is really an innovation in one world created by separation. 

In order to clarify our thoughts, we bring here two other pertinent words: “technology” and “culture”. The word technology comes from Greek “techne” and “logos”. “Techne” means art, skill, craft, or the way, manner. “Logos”, on the other hand, means word, expression of thoughts. The word "culture" derives from the Latin "colere" which means to tend to the earth, cultivation and nurture. 

If we as human beings want to develop science, it is important to establish connections between the cultural environment and the human being himself. The technology will help us in this inner investigation. 

We focused on it by creating an interactive game and social media to share their photos (Sky Pictures taken from the app), being able to monitor their development on the astronomical studies using Hubble photos, thus making a more dynamic and illustrative means of education. This app is a new way to share NASA discoveries and users can use it in an outdoor environment in contact with nature (in an open area). If scientific discoveries come from new perspectives of the environment, this technology will enable a new point of view of the sky. Moreover, it can connect NASA science with a new perspective of discovering life.

It is important to know that this application is a new way to encourage young people to become a scientist, engineer, or communicator in the field of astronomy. It can inspire people to look at science as a bridge to connect diverse audiences and bring them more consciousness about the connection between space and Earth. People will have more freedom to interact with the sky, and they will be able to correlate Astronomy with their contexts of life experiences, as well as expand their relationships with these new objects. 

This type of interaction creates a pleasant and relaxed environment, favoring interaction and disinhibiting people. Much was learned and speculated about the universe simply through the naked eye observation of the sky. However, a giant leap was taken by Astronomy after the invention of the telescope by the Dutchman Hans Lippershey (1570-1619), who built the first instrument in 1608 in Holland. Galileo Galilei (1569-1642) became aware of this invention in Italy in 1609. Since then, people have looked to the sky with instruments that considerably expanded their visual capabilities (Costa Junior et al, 2018). 

Scientific works have increasingly demonstrated the great motivating potential that observational astronomy can generate for people, both in formal and informal education environments (Gohn, 2006).

We would like to thank Marco Antonio Linhares for the organisation of the activities in Campinas. We would also like to thank Jonathan Feller for the inspirational work, Soraya Isliker for the English corrections and Beatriz Amoedo Giorgi for voice support. 

NASA AND ITS PARTNERS' RESOURCES:

ORION RAINBOW OF INFRARED LIGHT. NASA ORGANIZATION. Retrieved from: https://images.nasa.gov/details-PIA13959. accessed in October first, 2021.

ORION NEBULA AND BOW SHOCK. NASA ORGANIZ ATION. Retrieved from: https://images.nasa.gov/details-PIA04227. Accessed in October first, 2021.

THE SWORD OF ORION. NASA ORGANIZATION. Retrieved from: https://images.nasa.gov/details-PIA08653. Accessed in October first, 2021.

JUPITER RING WITH ORION. NASA ORGANIZATION. Retrieved from: https://images.nasa.gov/details-PIA21644. Accessed in October first, 2021.

ORION CONSTELLATION. Retrieved from: https://hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/2006/01/1836-Image.html?news=true. Accessed on October first, 2021.

NASA Images (2020, September). Sounds from Around the Milky Way [Video]. NASA Image and Video Library. Retrieved from https://images.nasa.gov/details-sonify_galactic_all. Accessed in October second, 2021.

EXTERNAL RESOURCES:

Costa, Edio da et al. Divulgação e ensino de Astronomia e Física por meio de abordagens informais. Revista Brasileira de Ensino de Física [online]. 2018, v. 40, n. 4 [Accessed onOctober 3th 2021] , e5401. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1590/1806-9126-RBEF-2018-0051 Epub 14 Maio 2018. ISSN 1806-9126.

Gohn, Maria da Glória. Educação não-formal, participação da sociedade civil e estruturas colegiadas nas escolas. Ensaio: valiação e Políticas Públicas em Educação [online]. 2006,v. 14, n. 50 [Accessed on October 3th 2021] , pp. 27-38. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1590/S0104-40362006000100003. Epub 15 Set 2006. ISSN 1809-4465.

Mayer, R. E. (2001). Multimedia learning. Cambridge University Press. [Accessed on October3th 2021]. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139164603

Wikipedia contributors. (2021, August 30). Orion (constellation). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20:26, October 3, 2021. Retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Orion_(constellation)&oldid=1041405029. Acessed in: 0ctober First 2021.

Orion Constellation. Retrieved from: https://unsplash.com/photos/wghUT2O46HY

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This project has been submitted for consideration during the Judging process.