SocialSpacing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZIuW5_b19M

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1O-aWgAXbJQxBTOhTrYx5JbfCgfOTrP_KLheXD14Ztnc/edit?usp=sharing

How The Game Works:

Board Design:

The board is designed in a spiral fashion, with earth at the center of the spiral and the rest of the planets following, going in order from the closest to the sun to the farthest away.

Turns on Planets and Journeys in between:

At each planet, players will search for life, but the amount of time spent on each planet and the journeys in between will vary based on chance cards. The player pieces start on earth and travel to mercury. The journey from earth to mercury spans one tile. During travel, a general chance card must be pulled by each player and will either result in a negative or positive effect on the player’s journey to the next planet. Once the player arrives at Mercury, they will have three turns on the planet, which goes for the other planets as well. For each turn on the planet they will draw a planet chance card, some of which features challenges specific to the planet based on real space data. If they draw a negative card, the amount of time they spend on that planet increases, but a positive card could accelerate their progress and push them ahead of their competitors. Then, after the three turns, the player will leave with new discoveries or data that is sent back to earth. The player then travels to the next planet Venus, and the game continues in a similar fashion, ending at Neptune. All players will play by these rules, but chance cards will either slow or accelerate a player’s progress, affecting their race against other players. 

Goal:

Whichever player reaches the finish first, which is located after Neptune at the edge of the spiral, is the winner of the game. If there is a tie, players will roll a die and the player who rolls the highest wins.

Game Rules:

• This game supports anywhere from 2-6 players.
• Each player has to take at least 3 three planet chance cards specific for the planet they are at. 
• Each player will have to take a general chance card for each tile they land on while traveling between planets.
• The number of general chance cards taken is based on our solar system. Meaning the actual distance between the planets will determine how many general chance cards are taken. 
• For example, the distance between Saturn and Uranus is quite distant, so the players will have to take 3 general chance cards to travel between the planets. Compared to the distance between Saturn and Uranus, traveling from Mercury to Venus takes less time, so the players will only need to take one general chance card. 
• A six-sided dice will have to be rolled for certain chance cards. 
• Players move one tile each turn unless chance cards say otherwise

Cards: 

General Chance Cards:

General Chance Cards contain possible setbacks that can occur during space travel, as well as any “scientific breakthroughs” that may happen. Setbacks will result in a player’s journey being slowed down by 1-2 turns, therefore giving other players a chance to get ahead of them. The scientific breakthroughs are based on technologies that are currently in development by scientists, which would help boost the speed of space exploration. Scientific breakthroughs include thruster upgrades, rover upgrades, and fuel enrichments, which allows players to skip 1 tile the next time they travel between planets. 

Microgravity - 

Being in space there are many spots with microgravity, but this low gravity environment causes blood to remain in the brain. This may result in many health issues such as a hemorrhagic stroke, so astronauts need to perform exercises to keep the blood flowing through the body. 

Bone and Muscle deterioration - 

Without gravity, bones and muscles start to deteriorate leading to bone and muscle atrophy. Astronauts will need to exercise in order to keep their bones and muscles in shape. 

Planet Chance Cards:

Each planet featured in the game has their own chance cards, which features challenges and characteristics specific to that planet. 

Planet Chance Cards for each planet are placed at the side of the board along with the General Chance Cards. For each tile on the planet, the player draws one card. A total of 3 planet chance cards will be drawn on each planet. For some planets, players will land on a moon of that planet instead, due to the extreme challenges of landing on planets such as Jupiter and Saturn. 

Mercury - 

Mercury is a small planet with a dense core that makes it relatively heavy for its size, this combined with the lack of atmosphere will make it have a hard landing when a rover or lander visits this planet. Another important feature to this planet is its closeness to the sun, making it incredibly hot on one side of the planet and incredibly cold on the other. To avoid burning to death or to die by solar radiation, a shuttle will have to observe and land on the dark side of the planet or the dawn/dusk areas of the planet.

Venus - 

Venus is an extremely hot planet with acid rain, high atmospheric pressure, and lots of volcanoes. It is the second planet from the sun, meaning that its surface is very hot. The clouds contain drops of sulfuric acid, which results in acid rain on the planet. Studies show that there is possible life on venus, due to a gas being found in clouds on venus that is produced by microbial life. Because of its high atmospheric pressure, it is easier to land on venus. Less fuel is also used for landing due to the planet’s thick atmosphere. The surface of this planet is covered in volcanoes, most of which are believed to be extinct. 

Mars - 

Mars is a very dusty planet with a very thin atmosphere. With such a thin atmosphere, there is little to no force against incoming objects, but there are still strong winds. Using the winds, rovers and probes can be designed with sailing mechanisms to help travel through the planet. The strong winds can also cause the large amount of dust storms that occur; Some may cover the entire planet and last for months. Also due to the lack of an active core, Mars contains tons of solar radiation, making it difficult for humans to survive on the planet. 

Jupiter - 

There is no place to land on Jupiter and the sheer size makes flying close by to it dangerous due to the gravity well. Several probes can orbit the planet before flying into it to gather information. A lander can also visit the moons, most importantly Europa, for signs of life and other interesting features that might be present on the moons. Europa also has a lot of water on it and although there is technically an ocean present on the moon, it is underneath at least a foot of ice.

Saturn - 

Saturn is a gas giant, meaning that it is not possible to land on the surface of the planet. However, the largest of its 83 moons, Titan, is found to be possibly able to support life. The planet is 10 times away from Earth, which results in temperatures being extremely low. Titan is found to contain Methanide and Methane, which means that there may be signs of life in certain areas. Currently, NASA has a planned mission called Dragonfly that will deliver a rotorcraft to Titan, exploring for signs of life. 

Uranus - 

Uranus is a cold ice giant planet that is rich in methane, ammonia, and water. Due to its unique structure and temperature, Uranus has some areas of its inner atmosphere raining diamonds while there is expected to be a core of metal and dense rock at the center of Uranus, the majority of it is a semi-solid of natural gases that are liquified or turned to ice due to the extremely low temperatures. The planet rotates almost completely on its side, leaving one pole to face the dim sun while the other pole faces extreme cold and dark. Due to lack of research, it is theorized that life cannot exist on Uranus.

Neptune: 

Being very similar to Uranus, Neptune is also an ice giant, rich in methane, ammonia, and water, with diamonds raining from its atmosphere. Being the farthest planet, in our solar system, from the sun, it is super cold and super dark. Neptune also generates more energy than it gets from the sun, which causes the clouds to move at an extremely fast speed, creating supersonic winds. These supersonic winds can cause hurricanes and tornadoes, making it very dangerous to live there. Due to all these challenges, it is predicted that there is no life on Neptune. 

Our Mission Statement and Goal:

As kids, we have all been fascinated with space and the unknown. But as we grow older, our dreams of becoming an astronaut diminish. In order to ignite that spark again, our team has created a fun and interactive board game for your family members to play! Our board game will inspire kids and teens of all ages to explore the world of STEM by making it fun and interactive.  Why should we learn using games? When learning about STEM related topics, it is hard for students to pay attention and find the topics interesting and in turn will make it boring. In order for kids to learn faster and more effectively we need to make it engaging. Research shows that using games to learn will increase student attentiveness, and increase the motivation of students. (NCBI 2019)

Our Target Audience:

In addition, our goal is to educate everyone. We strongly believe everyone should deserve the same opportunity despite their age, race, ethnicity, gender, economic status, and sexual orientation. Each day, women in science, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and African Americans, are discriminated against and have a disadvantage compared to their white counterparts. By using our board game, we can bring awareness to these issues and educate those that aren’t necessarily aware of what’s happening. 

In addition, we want to help not just kids in well developed countries, but also in third world countries that don’t have the necessary money to afford teachers and schools. By using our board game, we can significantly cut down costs and it will also be easy to mass produce. By exposing children in third world countries to STEM related ideas, we can inspire them to become engineers, scientists, mathematicians, and even astronauts. With such cost effective techniques like our game board, schools can save money and instead use that money to invest in more lab equipment, books, eg. 

How We Used Space Agency Data In This Project:

NASA’s space data was used to gather much info for our board game, such as real data of challenges on planets, as well as research on possibilities of life in outer space. We used NASA’s solar system exploration website to collect quick facts about planets, then created the planet chance cards with the information. For instance, data shows that Mars has a thin atmosphere, which makes it harder to land. Taking this data, we created a chance card that makes players wait 1 turn because the spaceship was damaged during landing due to loss of control when entering the atmosphere, and needs to be fixed. We also used space agency websites to research how spaceships can land on planets and what could go wrong during that process. That information was also added to various chance cards. We learned from NASA articles that some planets can’t be landed on due to their lack of solid surfaces, such as the gas giants, which led to us deciding that we would have the players explore the most inhabitable moons of those planets instead. For example, we learned that one of Jupiter’s moons, Europa, is very likely to be suitable for life, due to having the three main “ingredients” for life- liquid water, carbon based molecules, and sunlight. We then decided to have the players’ mission to Jupiter involve searching europa for life and data. 

How We Developed This Project:

With only 48 hours to complete the project, we knew we had to use our time efficiently. Being a three person group, we had to do a lot of work and with conflicting schedules it was extremely challenging to find a time to do this. But we devoted ourselves and committed our time to complete this project. By overcoming these challenges, we were able to create game rules, game cards, and also a game board. 

Step 1: Discussion and Game Rules

Every great game comes with a great idea. The first thing we did was think of a creative board game that would create a fun and interactive atmosphere for the players. We decided to create Spazio. Spazio is space in Italian. We chose this, because we wanted to have a recognizable name. Spazio is easy to remember and efficient to say. Next was the objective of the game. We wanted to make this game competitive like a race. So, we decided on having players race against each other on an epic scavenger hunt, with destinations on all of our seven planet neighbors. After that, we need to create a game board. When creating the game board we had many phases. Our first idea was a monopoly inspired board. However, it was too messy and was a bit advanced for our idea. Next was just a straight line that was inspired by the Solar System posters we saw online. However, in the end it was too long and didn’t feel creative enough. We finally decided on a spiral themed board which allows us to display the planets of the solar system in an effective way, and creates a pleasing visual effect. 

Step 2: Research

When the basic structure of the board game was decided, we started researching the facts about each planet in our solar system, as well as general facts about the challenges of space travel. With this research, we created our chance cards and figured out the basic concept of how our game would work. 

Step 3: Finalizing Concepts & Designs/Creating the Board & Pieces

In the last step of our process, we made final decisions on game rules and board & card designs, then turned those ideas into reality. We drew out the game board and designed the chance cards using canva. We also 3D printed out modified game pieces from tinkercad to use as our player tokens. For rules, we decided on how many turns would be spent on each planet and journeys in between, as well as what would happen when negative or positive chance cards were drawn. 

How We Would Take This Project Further:

If given more time, our team would have expanded this idea of educated entertainment into a scratch video game. This video game will be able to extend the education aspect of our idea even further by having even more of the difficulties of space travel. The idea of traveling to other planets is very complicated due to all the different factors that an astronaut’s team will have to consider. Time, food, fuel, and energy are just some of the different needs on a space quest, and they should all be taken into account by the player. At the start, a certain amount of money, around 200 million dollars, will be provided to the astronaut crew members, but they have to spend it wisely in order to get to different planets successfully.The main resources needed are characters in the crew, the greenhouse food source, and the fuel engine, which will all be provided with the most basic versions in the beginning; In order to succeed, the player has to use the money given to buy better food supplies, rocket thrusters, crew members, and other necessary equipments. During the travel process, the crew members will have to perform tasks like maintaining the rocket ship, maintaining their own health, repairing the ship, etc. One of the biggest tasks is staying healthy, which includes working out to transfer the blood equally through the body. Maintaining mental health is also a challenge, traveling through the entire solar system will require a lot of mental strength as it will take a long time. Obviously, the video game would take much longer to complete with the extra travel commands, but it will also, without a doubt, teach the player more about the mechanics of transportation and healthcare in space. 

Tools:

Premiere Pro

Google Docs

Notes

Google

Safari

Green Screen

youtube

Pexels

Unsplash

Resources:

NASA. (2021, October 1). Home – NASA solar system exploration. NASA. Retrieved October 3, 2021, from https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/.  

NASA. (2021, June 8). Europa: A world of ice, with potential for life – NASA's Europa Clipper. NASA. Retrieved October 3, 2021, from https://europa.nasa.gov/news/33/europa-a-world-of-ice-with-potential-for-life/.  

Dunbar, B. (n.d.). The challenges of landing on Mars. NASA. Retrieved October 3, 2021, from https://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/mars_challenges.html. 

Talbert, T. (2021, September 8). Episode 2 – we asked a NASA scientist: Is Mars habitable? NASA. Retrieved October 4, 2021, from https://www.nasa.gov/feature/episode-2-we-asked-a-nasa-scientist-is-mars-habitable/. 

External Resources:

García-Redondo, P., García, T., Areces, D., Núñez, J. C., & Rodríguez, C. (2019, July 11). Serious games and their effect improving attention in students with learning disabilities. International journal of environmental research and public health. Retrieved October 4, 2021,from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6679141/.  

Stanley, S. (2021, September 16). Is Venus volcanically active? new approach could provide an answer. Phys.org. Retrieved October 3, 2021, from https://phys.org/news/2021-09-venus-volcanically-approach.html.  

Pearlman, R. Z. (2021, September 12). Venera Timeline: The Soviet Union's Venus missions in pictures. Space.com. Retrieved October 3, 2021, from https://www.space.com/soviet-venera-venus-missions-slideshow.  

Greenfieldboyce, N. (2020, September 14). A possible sign of life right next door to Earth, on Venus. NPR. Retrieved October 3, 2021, from https://www.npr.org/2020/09/14/912619891/a-possible-sign-of-life-right-next-door-to-earth-on-venus. 

Tomaswick, A. (2021, September 3). It's time to send a lander to Mercury. Universe Today. Retrieved October 4, 2021, from https://www.universetoday.com/152391/its-time-to-send-a-lander-to-mercury/. 

Staff, S. A. (n.d.). Mercury's surface is a true hellscape - here's how human technology could survive it. ScienceAlert. Retrieved October 4, 2021, from https://www.sciencealert.com/mercury. 

Mercury's mantle goes with the flow. National Air and Space Museum. (n.d.). Retrieved October 4, 2021, from https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/mercurys-mantle-goes-flow. 

Plait, P. (2021, September 14). Want to go to Mars? better leave when the Sun is active to minimize galactic radiation poisoning. SYFY WIRE. Retrieved October 4, 2021, from https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/want-to-go-to-mars-better-leave-when-the-sun-is-active-to-minimize-galactic-radiation. 

Planetary protection: How to explore Mars and other worlds responsibly. The Planetary Society. (n.d.). Retrieved October 4, 2021, from https://www.planetary.org/articles/planetary-protection-explore-responsibly. 

Could there be life on Jupiter's moons? Phys.org. (n.d.). Retrieved October 4, 2021, from https://phys.org/news/2021-03-life-jupiter-moons.html.  

Dickinson, D. (2021, August 26). Saturn's 'Fuzzy core' seen in ring ripples. Universe Today. Retrieved October 4, 2021, from https://www.universetoday.com/152284/saturns-fuzzy-core-seen-in-ring-ripples/.  

Pultarova, T. (2021, October 1). Stinky 'Mushball' hailstones on Uranus may explain an atmospheric anomaly there (and on Neptune, too). Space.com. Retrieved October 4, 2021, from https://www.space.com/uranus-mushballs-hailstones-stinky-gas-neptune-atmosphere-anomaly. 

Solar system · free stock video - pexels. (n.d.). Retrieved October 4, 2021, from https://www.pexels.com/video/solar-system-854278

Video of planet Saturn · Free Stock Video - Pexels.com. (n.d.). Retrieved October 4, 2021, from https://www.pexels.com/video/video-of-planet-saturn-5428316/

View of mars · free stock video - pexels. (n.d.). Retrieved October 4, 2021, from https://www.pexels.com/video/view-of-mars-856359/

Close-up footage of a paper texture and surface · free ... (n.d.). Retrieved October 4, 2021, from https://www.pexels.com/video/close-up-footage-of-a-paper-texture-and-surface-4822860/

Planet png photos: Free PNG image library. NicePNG. (n.d.). Retrieved October 4, 2021, from https://www.nicepng.com/

#boardgame #spaceexploration #planets #solarsystem #socialspacing

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