High-Level Project Summary
Is it too late for our blue marble, earth? Of course not, because Photosynthesis the Mascot is here! It both inspires children into becoming superheroes themselves, and also trains them via the game called ''Save the Earth with Photosynthesis the Mascot!''. One side note: we just heard that an extra super power is coming to help, too!
Link to Project "Demo"
Link to Final Project
Detailed Project Description
How We Adressed This Challenge?
Our Team
We are ''SuperpowerIMAGINATION'', a team of students enthusiastic about combining STEM education with art.
The Problem
Our Earth has many wonderful ways of sustaining life. Every day, we research deeper about its processes and become fascinated even more. So why a lot of children find these cycles ''dull'' and dislike STEM in general? Although STEM projects are promoted widely, we rely on abstract concepts to teach STEM related topics. And naturally, the majority of students can't learn anything. Basically, we destroy the future scienstists, innovators, designers and artists.
Moreover, Global Climate Crisis continues to cause adversities: Glaciers shrink, sea levels rise drastically and longer, more intense heat waves are experienced. The key solution to stop Global Climate Crisis is raising awareness worldwide. In order to achieve this goal, every type of discrimination must be eliminated and collaboration should be encouraged.
The Solution
We created a friendly, inspiring and supporting mascot, which design is originated from the chlorophyll molecule: Photosynthesis the Mascot!
Its early design is placed below:
And the final desing:
Having a character which they can symphatize with, children will learn about wonders of photosynthesis easily and deeply. Also, they will have a immersive adventure experience with Photosynthesis the Mascot!
Save the Earth with Photosynthesis the Mascot!
With the art of storytelling, we created an interactive game to convey NASA values such as safety, integrity, team work, excellence and inclusion. At the start of the game, Photosynthesis the Mascot introduces itself. Then, it examplifies some damages Global Climate Crisis caused so far. In order to make living in Earth safe again (the safety value), players must work as teams and with integrity to upgrade photosynthesis (the excellence value). Thus, carbon dioxide concentrations will be reduced and Earth will cool down. While conducting virtual experiments, teams will be aided and mentored by diverse scientist characters (the inclusion value). Therefore, children will learn about biotechnology and how to execute researchs.
But just like everthing, photosynthesis has limits. Thus, an extra super power is required. Fortunately, element conversion is there!
Actually, nuclear transmutation is possible today. But it's extremely hard to do and inefficient. So, our scientist characters will develop an ultra laser which converts elements easily, efficiently and in an enviromentally friendly way. If players can learn to use it, Global Climate Crisis will be eliminated in our game universe!
The Storyboard
When we viewed the past submissions of ''Create a Mascot'' challenge, we realised that many projects had incorporated their mascot into apps. And then, we thought '' Why don't we place our mascot into a storyline?''. Stories are fun and effective when it comes to education. Moreover, a mascot which develops during a story is more relatable and interesting than a static one.
We didn't only make a bare storyboard, we incorporated our mascot, too. Although we couldn't highlighted its personality due to being time constrained, you'll be able to observe its sympathetic attitude throughout the storyboard. When its guidance ends, you can also see the bare storyboard and other characters.
Since we summarized our plot earlier, we just provide a link of our storyboard:
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/578254396
Benefits and Goals
Our mascot communicates precious information about photosynthesis and NASA values. The game equip children with skills such as collaboration. But most importantly, our project rasises awareness of Global Climate Crisis and forms a solution to overcome it.
Our biggest goal is to inspire children worldwide to change the world. We want to eliminate the belief that children aren't capable of achieving great things as well.
Our Tools
- PENUP
- S Pen
- Scratch
Space Agency Data
https://www.nasa.gov/content/earth-day-2020-50th-anniversary-toolkit
We entered MY NASA DATA from this site, and used the information about photosynthesis in the game.
https://climate.nasa.gov/
We gave examples of some adversities caused by Global Climate Crisis via this site, and encouraged children to research more of them.
https://climatekids.nasa.gov/
We left some information gaps in the game, and encouraged children to complete them via this website.
https://climate.nasa.gov/images-of-change?id=763#763-great-migration%22-back-to-atlanta,-georgia
To establish the suspension of disbelief, players will see chronocigally reversed before-after photos if they succeed at enhancing photosynthesis. A sample can be seen in final project.
Hackathon Journey
Our Journey
Why We Chose This Challenge?
Because this challenge points out the problems which impact the daily life most, like ineffective STEM education and Global Climate Crisis. Also, its solution doesn't require some form of expertise, which makes an attractive challenge for youth. And most importantly, this is the most imaginative challenge among the others.
Our Approach to Developing This Project
We started with viewing the past winners and analyzed why they became succesful. We also were inspired by some projects such as Survivors: An interactive AR species survival game, Can You Hear Me Now?, and A.I. HEROES projects. Especially Can You Hear Me Now project made us devise the current plot. We did some research to maintain suspension of disbelief and determine the mascot's design. When hackathon started:
- We shared the tasks.
- Ege drew the storyboard and created the demo.
- Deniz coded the final project and edited the project page.
- Everyone showed their final crafts to their team members, and we brainstormed about further developments.
- We presented our project to mentors, then we integrated their feedback.
Challenges
Initially, we wanted to develop a clickable storyboard similar to the one in Can You Hear Me Now?, but we couldn't find any information on how to create one. So, we used our creativity and decided to code the storyboard with Scratch. This solution also enabled us to introduce and develop our mascot.
Another problem we experienced was uploading our mascot design to digital devices. When we scanned our hand-driven mascot, it pixelated. We couldn't improve the scanning quality and had to redraw our mascot digitally. Fortunately, by the end of the process, we succeeded in creating a more appealing design.
We went through the problem of incorporating the NASA data as well. We had added some information provided by NASA to our project, but it didn't seem enough. Then, we focused to visual data and devised the idea of using the images to demonstrate the progress of players. Therefore, this solution emphasized the importance of NASA data.
What Did We Learn?
We were able to observe the serious damages caused by Global Climate Crisis. Also, we freshened our dusty information about photosynthesis, and learned the cool ways of enhancing the photosynthesis. We learned about nuclear transmutation as well.
Thanks to...
- The mentors who shared their feedbacks with us
- The mentor who explained us how to upload our demo
- TED Çorum Private High School for enabling us to participate in the hackathon
- Our parents for providing us tools and ideas for our project
- The people who created this challenge
- The people who developed this hackathon
References
The Data Provided by NASA
- https://www.nasa.gov/content/earth-day-2020-50th-anniversary-toolkit
- https://climate.nasa.gov/
- https://climatekids.nasa.gov/
- https://climate.nasa.gov/images-of-change?id=763#763-great-migration%22-back-to-atlanta,-georgia
External Resources
- https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-chemistry/chapter/nuclear-transmutation/
- http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100218092846.htm
- https://academic.oup.com/plphys/article/155/1/19/6111458
- https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2016.0374
- https://www.global-engage.com/agricultural-biotechnology/enhancing-photosynthesis-big-deal/
- https://news.illinois.edu/view/6367/430749
Inspirations
- https://2020.spaceappschallenge.org/challenges/connect/can-you-hear-me-now/teams/loud-and-clear/project
- https://2020.spaceappschallenge.org/challenges/observe/scanning-lifeforms/teams/team-twilight/project
- https://2020.spaceappschallenge.org/challenges/create/create-mascot/teams/ai-ltruistics/project
Global Judging
This project has been submitted for consideration during the Judging process.