Journey to Io

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1aiMoWcE7sPoByfa9T_B8L_0-3nO_4H2XynYuCHsr8Ts/edit?usp=sharing

journeytoio.com

We started with our audience in mind : 12 to 14 year old teenagers . Our aim was to introduce space to our audience in a fun and interactive way . We wanted to make it easier and relaxing for them to understand and conceptualize space and space phenomenon . We also wanted to provide our audience with a tool to develop space awareness and cognitive skills to recognize and identify problems that our space scientists face or are working on . Ultimately , we wanted to make space fun for our audience .

WHY THIS PROJECT

Our project is aimed at middle school students , teenagers and anybody who is interested in space . Our goal is to make space accessible and fun to those who are under-represented , to the minorities and to those who find STEM boring . Presenting only facts can make a subject , especially a STEM subject, very boring and tedious . Not to mention , the difficulty of subjects like physics , mathematics , astronomy , robotics can easily make a student loose interest in it . Hence , we decided to come with a fun and interactive game . Our goal is to give rise to the curiosity and competitive streak of our audience through a series of adventures and challenges while at the same time promoting the learning component .

HOW WE ADDRESSED THIS CHALLENGE

To make studying less tedious , we approached the game project . While we were discussing the project , our research led us across many facts and phenomenons that were linked upon each other , those that can marvel the reader's mind . That led to the idea of this game . In this project , we adopted an interactive text style . We made the challenges start from very basics , and then built other challenges on top of the previous ones . Our goal was to put the facts in such a way that user can't help but remember it and become more curious about it. Each quest was a building block . We also tried to include a thrilling component to all our challenges , first , to challenge the player's competitive streak and second , to make this game a better learning experience .

How so?

The player will navigate through a series of life threatening problems , and he(r) will have to perform tasks to stay alive. The main goal for them is "TO STAY ALIVE" .

We went through NASA's database to figure what risks are involved in a space mission . We modeled our challenge tracks (right now , we have 155 of them!) on the basis of these risks . While navigating through the challenges , the player will have to try to stay alive . And to stay alive , they will need to pick the hints and facts to clear the levels . (It's like a treasure hunt!)

Journey to Io is a journey that never ends ! Through this project , we hope to invoke children's curiosity towards space , and enhance their space awareness.

mage Credit : Ryan Cosgrove (team member)

Addressing Inequalities and Promoting Self-Love:

For instance, STEM-related careers are perceived to be predominantly male, which could limit women and people of color in choosing these types of careers (Makarova, 2019). How is it reflected in the facts? Since 1903, when Marie Curie won the Nobel Prize in Physics, only 17 women have won a Nobel Prize in physics, chemistry, or medicine, compared to 572 men (UNESCO, 2017). Globally, less than 30% of all researchers are women (UIS, 2019). Only 7% of STEM workforce is black , and 8.7% Asian . It's no surprise then that when you ask a child to “draw a scientist”, most of them end up drawing white men in lab coats and instruments that reflect a chemistry lab (Miller et al., 2018; Thomson, 2019). A broad stereotype that does not show cultural diversity in science or in STEM-related careers, probably because it is not seen in the media or in its context, although there are large contributions by black people, of another race or nationality.

Despite notable achievements in STEM by minority groups, more investment in them remains to be done. Children in developing countries may have a dream of being an astronaut but this would remain only a dream because they may not have the necessary understanding of the basic concepts of physics and mathematics, neither the local role models to be inspired to accomplish so. How frustrating for a child this can be! For instance, in the last PISA test, it was evidenced that countries such as the Dominican Republic, the Philippines and Kosovo had one of the lowest scores in understanding about Science and Mathematics, compared to countries such as China and Finland. A good education that defends equal rights, that is, an inclusive and quality education will allow to take root in the minds of the smallest in these types of conditions, which will allow them to recover their curiosity and emotion of seeing it possible to have such a career and become the next brilliant minds or "heroes" of the future.

Through our characters , we have tried to represent people from all walks of life and all backgrounds .

HOW WE DEVELOPED THIS PROJECT

Teenage is a period where individuals are the most curious and susceptible to new knowledge and information . We want to stimulate their curiosity .

We first began with researching what encourages the competitive streak of a teenager , more specifically , the gaming industry trends . Our next stop was NASA's open database . Our objective was to combine the best of both - the excitement of video games and knowledge from NASA - and come up with an interactive platform.

We picked specific challenges and scenarios from NASA to create our story line . The game's storyline was created from scratch by our team leader Catherine Mary Darensbourg . She then used Twine to host it . In this , she was helped by our team member Lukas Juskevicius , who used Visual Code to add touches to our HTML file . All our illustrations were created by Ryan Cosgrove who used Adobe Photoshop . The slides were made by Diwa Pankaj using google slides .

GITHUB : https://github.com/juskis4/JourneyToIo

• Dunbar, B. (Oct 8, 2019), 5 Hazards of Human Spaceflight. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. https://www.nasa.gov/hrp/hazards-of-human-spaceflight-videos
• Abadie, L., Cranford, N., Charles, L., Shelhamer, M.,& Turner, J., (Feb 2, 2021), The Human Body in Space, National Aeronautics and Space Administration. https://www.nasa.gov/hrp/bodyinspace
• Dunbar, B. (Sep 14, 2021), Space Radiation (HRP Elements). National Aeronautics and Space Administration. https://www.nasa.gov/hrp/elements/radiation
• http://www.visitnasa.com/space-center-houston-texas

We had an amazing experience creating this project . The mos important thing we take home is definitely our team work and knowledge of space (There were many space facts that we got to know for the first time!) We had to face through many obstacles like problems in website hosting , bugs in our code and making 3D figures for our game . We , as a team , are definitely taking away a plethora of knowledge .

We weren't sure if we will be taking up this challenge . After a group discussion , we chose to take up this project . Our team comprised of members from 18-51 , who were from all across the globe . This helped us add an unique touch to our game , and make it playable for people from all walks of lives . Our major hurdles were definitely the logistic ones , since we all belonged to different parts of world .

We would like to thank Allen for his valuable ideas and help to develop our game play .

https://www.mos.org/about-us

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-38170406

https://www.unicef.org/

https://www.webmd.com/parenting/features/children-and-cell-phones#1

#games , #JourneytoIo , #Mars , #Space_Travel

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