High-Level Project Summary
From the challenge we brought the idea of ββthe application:An educational and fun trivia game that explains the dangers of the trip to Mars.Features and expected experience for the player:- Lots of informationLearn and have fun at the same timeThe goal of the game :Educating the target group about the dangers of space, the importance of the Mars flight, and teaching them how to find environmentally friendly solutions and innovation to stay alive in space.How we used NASA sources in the game:We have used NASA articles and researches to find space hazards and information about the physiological risksFuture image :make the game more advanced in terms of questions and settings
Link to Project "Demo"
Link to Final Project
Detailed Project Description
Why did we choose to create a Trivia Game?
According to the surveys conducted, it was found 86% of children say they're interested in space exploration and 90% want to learn more about it. There is a lot of information on the internet. But rarely something engaging is present there.
We chose the challenge "The Trail to Mars: Can you keep your crew alive" because we were confident and dedicated to building something that will attract young minds towards space and specifically Mars. After all, it is the most favorable place in our solar system(after Earth) where humans would like to settle.
Kids aging 10-14 years are very curious to know about the journey to Mars. They have a lot of questions in mind like "How will we gonna build community on Mars?", "How are we gonna take a lot of people to Mars?", "What are the risks that astronauts will face during the journey?", etc. So, to fuel their curiosity in a fun manner, we decided to create a Trivia Game that will help the kids to know more about the journey to Mars, and how to keep astronauts alive through the entire journey.
Now you must be thinking that Why have we created a Trivia Game only? Why not a 3D game or a simulation? The answer is the limitlessness and scalability of the platform. If we had tried to create a 3D game or a simulation from scratch then maybe we couldn't have completed it in 48 hours. And also, if you think practically, a 3D game would have been a lot more engaging but it would also be very much limited with the amount of knowledge that it will give to its users. Scientists are discovering new things every day, and the knowledge from these discoveries is crucial for us to keep making our plan better day by day and make it more promising.
Even for big companies, it is very difficult to release major updates regularly for a 3D game. While in a Trivia Game, it is comparatively easier to keep on adding/updating/deleting questions. So, there is no limit to the amount of knowledge that we can spread through this game.
And a Trivia Game is also very scalable. We can make a Trivia Game so much fun like people love to play with their friends and we can update this game to gain a multiplayer feature also. We can use Artificial Intelligence to make it so much more engaging and challenging.
How does our Trivia Game works?
Our game right now is very basic and currently features only a quiz of 9 questions and 3 levels. Our game is a Website/Web App that uses the front-end to do almost everything. We did not use the back-end a lot because we had a very limited time. And using the front-end was a comparatively less time-consuming and simpler way to create a quiz rather than using a backend. Due to the limited time frame of 48 hours, we decided to create only 3 levels with 3 questions in each level. Each level represents a phase during our journey from Earth to Mars.
In level one, we have put up questions about the challenges that scientists and engineers need to tackle before launching the rocket into space.
In level two, we have put up questions about the challenges that astronauts need to tackle while their journey to Mars through space.
In level three, we have put up questions about the challenges that astronauts need to tackle when they will finally reach Mars.
The result of these 3 levels will decide if the user was successfully able to send the crew safely to Mars or not.
And no doubt, to safely send a crew to Mars, the user will need to have answered all the options correctly.
Core Working of the app:
This site is almost completely made on the front end. We just used a little bit of back-end just for the hosting purpose. We could have hosted our site on GitHub. But as we're using a lot of CDNs and GitHub is helpful only for static files, we decided to use some back-end and host it on Heroku Servers (Free). The site uses HTML, CSS, and Javascript to function.
For all the beautification parts, we have used CSS. And for all the working purposes (quizzing) we have used Javascript.
With Javascript, we have created 2 files. One which contains only the questions, options, and answers. And one that manipulates the site to show questions, pop-ups, and receive a response. Using two different files has made it very easy for us to scale the application. We can just keep on adding questions in the question file, and we won't need to worry about how it will be shown on the site, because we have already created another file to handle all the quizzing parts.
And in the back-end, we have used NodeJS to serve our files. And the framework we have used is Express, with EJS for templating purposes. And with just a little bit of back-end, we didn't need to worry about the static files.
Software and Hardware that we used:
The software that was used to develop this site were:
V.S. Code β to write the code.
Google Chrome β to preview the site.
Linux OS.
The Hardware that we used was our laptop: Lenovo IdeaPad-320 15-AST.
Challenges that we faced:
All our team members are in high school. And we only have one programmer. So, it was very challenging for us to structure and design the game in such a way that it could do what it is expected to do, that is to attract and fuel the young minds to learn about space with ease and fun. Our team achieved all its members just 3 days before the hackathon. And since then we were all busy researching and learning about the challenges through the journey to Mars. And after collecting all the data, we started to create the site from scratch and do other stuff required (like making the presentation, video, etc.) And we are proud of us to complete this project with utmost sincerity and efficiency. We have put in our 100% effort to solve this challenge. And now we only hope for the best.
What we plan to achieve from this:
We plan to achieve engagement and distribution of knowledge to all those who are looking for it.
Though our site is very basic, we have plans to develop it further, like adding the real-time multiplayer feature to it. So, that kids can play it with their friends and family. And this will not only be fun for children, but it will also create a habit in those children to keep gaining more and more knowledge. We are also planning to add more parts to the back-end to improve the site's security and stability. We firmly believe that if the young generation is going in the direction of education then mankind needs to be ready to see some giant leaps in science and technology.
Our Idea is simple, but it promises the solution up to a whole another level. It is simple, sufficient, and scalable.
We live by our motto, "Achieving Bigger Goals with Simple Solutions".
Space Agency Data
We used NASA articles and research to create questions for the game, and they helped us increase inspiration and ideas.
Hackathon Journey
At first, we were lost and didn't know anything about the competition, but the sources of NASA's Challenge to Space Applications and the frequently asked questions made us understand how the competition was.
Then we chose a challenge because we play games and also love space and aspire to a trip to Mars
We thought of an educational trivia game, and we aspire to be more educational and fun and to introduce more topics about space, alternative energy, and NASA's goals for space.
And to develop it as a story and have characters like our inspiration, Sally Ride, the first American girl astronaut.
We faced the problem of different timings and that we are in different places and we can only communicate through the Internet, school, and university. We have studies and work.
We tried to communicate with each other and divide the business
We thank NASA for making this contest available to us, and we thank the contest organizers, Dr. Ahmed and the University of Sciences in Muscat.
References
we have used these links to make our questions
q1 / https://mars.nasa.gov/mars-exploration/missions/mars2020/
q3 /https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/timeline/cruise/
level 2
q2 https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/64249main_ffs_factsheets_hbp_atrophy.pdf
q3 https://cmsw.mit.edu/angles/2019/headspace-how-space-travel-affects-astronaut-mental-health/
Tags
#appdevolebment #heroku #thetrailtomarshowtokeepyourcrewalive #space #mars #triviagame #gametrailerandvid
Global Judging
This project has been submitted for consideration during the Judging process.