BIOMUSK

https://www.canva.com/design/DAEryp3lUq8/yqU2BWrYZmPJNX0wUsqmdA/view?utm_content=DAEryp3lUq8&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=sharebutton

https://view.genial.ly/6159c3bc9dd1ca0d28cdad49

In this project, a game was created for high school students which will consist of keeping an avatar alive and in good health to successfully complete a trip to Mars and return to earth. In the game, the different circumstances and risks that could affect the avatar's health will be presented and the character will have to correctly complete each of the tasks and activities that must be carried out on a journey as long as this.

In this game, five hazards that astronauts can face during a trip to Mars will be presented mainly and we will observe derivations of these risks that can occur during it. These hazards are:

1- Radiation

This first hazard is quite difficult to visualize since it is invisible to the human eye. The earth protects us naturally against radiation but when we leave the planet this protection disappears and they can receive a dose of radiation up to ten times greater than on earth. Which puts the astronaut at greater risk of cancer and damage to the central nervous system.

• Solutions

In the game, a bar with the average radiation level that they should receive during the entire trip will be constantly displayed, when this is affected to a higher level, the astronauts must verify that their suits and the ship are giving the correct protection against radiation ; In case both situations are working correctly and a pharmaceutical product is obtained to counteract the radiation in space, it will be necessary to take it to control the situation.

2- Isolation and confinement

This can cause problems such as lack of sleep, anxiety attacks, depression and sometimes anger attacks, which can cause a decrease in the astronaut's performance, health effects and a low performance of the missions to be completed.

• Solutions

In the development of the game, the crew would have a time or recreation area to counteract the depression and the fact of being isolated from the rest of humanity. Also the avatar would have the possibility to communicate with his family from time to time.

About jet lag and lack of sleep, the game will provide a bar representing the avatar's lack of sleep. It will indicate when to take a nap or if the bar is reaching its limit consider the option of taking supplements such as synthetic melatonin, which is a hormone that helps to fix the sleep cycle according to Erin E Flynn-Evans, member of the Measurement Group against NASA Fatigue.

3- Distance from Earth

Here we will find the problems that are related to making a trip as long as it is from Earth to Mars, we are talking about a trip of about 225 million kilometers. Emergencies may occur, some damage to the ship or a situation in which the crew must react as quickly as possible to avoid worse damage.

• Solutions

In this circumstance, the crew member must be very alert to react quickly to unforeseen events that may occur during the trip, if they cannot counteract the emergency that occurs in the given time, the astronaut will lose his life and the game will end.

4- Gravity

Astronauts on their journey to Mars will find a variation of gravity. Even after conditioning the ship, short and long-term exposure can have effects on human health. The presence of microgravity produces a loss in bone density, over time it affects the performance of astronauts increasing their risk of injury.

• Solutions

To counteract the effects of gravity on human health, you must exercise every day.

 Astronaut Garret Reisman said, “We found that by getting enough resistance exercise you could stop the effects of bone loss and muscle atrophy.” This is why the game would schedule two hours of exercise a day. The avatar would have an alarm that would indicate the time of physical activity. They could use the Cycle Ergometer which would be like a stationary bike, the anchored treadmill that provides a resistance system and finally ARED (Advanced Resistive Exercise Device) which is a weight lifting system.

5- Hostile/closed environment

In this last hazard, astronauts must make sure that important habitability factors such as temperature, pressure, lighting, noise and amount of space, are working correctly so that the crew at all times can stay healthy and in good mood.

• Solutions

During the game, situations could arise in the ship that must be repaired, within the itinerary of each day, a list of tasks that the crew member must perform will be presented, to make sure that the ship is working properly.

Game Details

A. In first instance, when opening the game, a menu will be displayed where the player can choose to take the tutorial, find out about the situations that may arise during the trip, he can also choose OPTIONS where the player can change the language of the game as well as remove music from it. In OPTIONS, you can also see the game settings and the player can choose if the avatar moves through arrows on the screen or only using the fingers on the screen. Finally there is the option of PLAY with which you could start the game.

B. In this image you can see how the tutorial of the problems and situations that may arise during the trip would look like.

C. In the game, two options will be presented in terms of the game mode, the player will choose whether to play in standard or multiplayer. In case you choose the latter, the game will grant a numerical code with which you can meet in a lobby with the other players and start the journey.

D. Then, a menu will be displayed where the player will have to choose the resources they want to select for the journey to Mars. Among the options are: water, food, medicine and entertainment. There will be a limit of 10 elements for each option.

E. Next, you must choose the team you want to have for this mission, in this menu in the standard version of the game, there will be a limit of 4 avatars from which you can choose between: doctor, mechanic, pilot and technician. Here the player must intelligently choose which are the avatars that best suit him to face the different situations he could face in space.

In case of playing the multiplayer version, there will be a limit up to 10 avatars and each player will be able to decide what role to take within the mission, these roles are those already mentioned (doctor, mechanic, pilot and technician).

F. At the end of these menu steps, the game will begin the trip to Mars along with the activities and options that can be observed in the development of the game itself. You can see a map of the route along with the distance and time remaining to reach the destination, also in a room a list of daily tasks that the avatar must complete will be displayed and at all times you will have access to the health status bars , food, sleep and entertainment.

G. In the right corner of the game screen, the map of the ship will be displayed in order to locate each room that you want to reach to complete the missions. And during its development, emergencies may occur that the avatar must solve with a set time in order to survive. For example, the avatar can present a high level of radiation and the avatar in this case must check what is in bad condition that is causing a failure either in his suit or in the ship and thus little by little time will advance and travel journey until you can complete the mission to successfully complete a trip to Mars.

TOOLS WE USE

-Creation of the game prototype: https://marvelapp.com/

-Preparation of the “DEMO” presentation: https://www.canva.com/

-Preparation of the final project: https://genial.ly/

GAME REFERENCES

In the brainstorming, several references came out of games that most have played before and others that we did not know but that we discovered while looking for how survival games are developed, one of them is the famous Among Us for the theme of space and Barotrauma for survival mode.

https://www.nasa.gov/hrp/hazards

This was one of the main data that helped us to formulate a large part of the game, we use it to better understand what the dangers that can be presented on a trip to Mars could be and find possible solutions to solve the problems. and complete the journey successfully.

https://www.nasa.gov/hrp/elements/radiation

Here we were able to better understand the risks of space radiation and how it can greatly affect humans and the difference in the radiation dose received in space, which is very high compared to that received on earth. .

https://hsi.arc.nasa.gov/groups/fatigue/news.php

This writing helped us to raise one of the problems that an astronomer can face which is lack of sleep, being in space loses the notion of knowing when it is night and when it is day, this can disorient a little in the various vital functions that the human body needs in order to function properly.

https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/participate/sounds/?playlist=mars&item=wind-on-mars-01&type=mars

This tool allows us to hear a little what the environment would be like on Mars and we were able to use it to make it one of the sounds within our game.

First, I thought that we would be very stressed by this project, because of the time, the vast information that we had to investigate to inspire ourselves in solutions and translate it as well as possible; but the group work paid off and this project progressed from one day to the next.

It is true that the challenge was to create a game that would explain the hazards that astronauts have in their travels and how to be healthy through their journey, but we were not stopped by the fact that none of the members are game programmers or graphic designers, and even so we reflected in our writing, prototype and final project what we had in mind and the ideas of each one. I am mainly grateful to my members, to these “Musketeers” who took their weekend to create a project, which I hope you like.

• (María Castillo)

The experience obtained in the development of this challenge was quite exciting and challenging, one of the reasons why we chose this challenge is that we like video games and try to create one that faces the dangers that can be experienced on a trip like This was quite fun and it helped us to investigate each of these dangers and to find a way to solve these dangers and to be able to complete the mission of the trip to Mars. The focus that we put on a bit is about a game that is interactive and fun but that helps players to have more knowledge about spacecraft topics, that is to say that it helps them to take away valuable knowledge on the subject. And well, having little time, we tried to do the best we could in the established time and be able to present a good proposal about the game. I would like to thank the teachers who have encouraged us to participate in this event and also the event organizers for allowing people to participate and give their best in order to learn and try to transmit the ideas that we put forward.

• (Miguel Serrano)

It was the first time for the whole team to carry out this challenge and we thought it was going to be stressful due to the time given to carry out the projects, however once we organized and divided tasks, everything was given in the best possible way.

The teamwork was impeccable and we hope to continue developing our idea in the future.

This challenge seemed super interesting to me, having to do research and be able to use NASA resources was something incredible.

We chose this topic because we think that people, specifically high school students, should have knowledge of travel and especially of the complications that astronauts present when making them. We are grateful for the opportunity and especially to the teachers who helped us and guided us in this experience.

• (Hazel Bernal)

Personally, this is the first time I have participated in a NASA project or challenge like this. For me the activity turned out to be quite interesting since it was the first time I had seen topics of this type; then having to collect information, research different pages, etc; made it possible to further expand knowledge in these types of areas.

We decided to choose the challenge of creating a game, since today there is much talk about traveling to Mars and the search for life and conducting missions on other planets in our system.

I think that this activity helped us to work hard as a team since, despite the fact that we had practically little time to develop a project as complete as requested, we managed to give the best of each one of us and achieve the objectives set at the beginning. We hope you like it and thank you for the invitation to participate in activities like this.

• (Nathaniel Ríos)

https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efectos_del_viaje_espacial_en_el_cuerpo_humano

http://www.scielo.org.pe/scielo.php?pid=S2308-05312020000200303&script=sci_arttext

https://www.enter.co/cultura-digital/ciencia/asi-es-la-rutina-de-ejercicios-de-los-astronautas-a-bordo-de-la-iss/

https://www.anmm.org.mx/publicaciones/CAnivANM150/Medicina_Espacial.pdf

#spaceship, #Mars, #travel, #missions, #game, #SpaceAppPanama, #musketeers

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