High-Level Project Summary
Our project is creating a fun and simple game for middle scholars about Astronauts and the challenges that they face in their exploration voyages. It’s done by simulating the challenges that they face and how they could potentially be solved by finishing tasks with their animated characters. Before each task an educational message will pop up, showing the player why doing this task is essential and the effects it can have on the crew if not done. For example, astronauts have to exercise two and a half hours a day to prevent bone and muscle loss. If the player fails to finish a task, the member’s health gets worse. It's important as it gives students a mild background of astronauts’ life.
Link to Project "Demo"
Link to Final Project
Detailed Project Description
Astronauts go on space exploration voyages all for the goal of guaranteeing humanity a better future. However, they face a lot of risks varying from health risks caused by microgravity and radiation, fixing communications systems when a solar particle event damages them, to communicates with the family back on Earth, etc. Our game focuses on teaching middle scholars about these risks and how they can be mitigated in a storytelling scenario. It starts off with the player wisely choosing the perfect crew composition (pilot, officer, mate, chief engineer, medical purser, watch leader) that fits the purpose of the voyage. The player has to do some tasks in order to keep his crew alive and prepare a daily timetable to get them done. They have to make sure that each crew member gets enough sleep, food, and exercise. Before each task an educational message will pop up, showing the player why doing this task is essential and the effects it can have on the crew if not done. For example, astronauts have to exercise two and a half hours a day to prevent bone and muscle loss. If the player fails to make the crew member exercise on time an alert will show that the member’s health and energy are getting worse. If medical care didn’t take control on time, they might lose the member. Another task is rehydrating food where the player has to prepare the meals for each member according to their needs. Another task is giving the player a simple Morse code and they’ll have to figure out what it means. This task simulates the communication problems that astronauts might face and the alternatives. After finishing each task, they get points and so on till they end the game. If they successfully complete the game, they will be qualified to replace the gained points with books that are related to astronomy and space or even got a visit to observe astronomical objects in a place like Egyptian Space Agency. The benefit of the game is that it teaches youth about the issues that astronauts face and how they could be mitigated in a simple and understandable way. We hope to develop our game and add more features. We are planning to make a VR version of the game and shift the tasks a little bit so that it’d fit the environment. For example, we will make the exercising task so that the player himself will do the exercises by using movement sensors or camera sensors that can detect his movement. We believe that VR will elevate the player’s experience to a whole new level as it’ll be closer to real life and the atmosphere will have a greater effect. We used “Scratch” to create the game. However, we’ll be using “Unity” in further stages as it’s way more developed.
Space Agency Data
NASA data was an essential factor in the researching and gathering information phase of the project. We learned about the changes that happen to the body in space and how they can be solved from the following sites: site 1, site 2.
Another problem that we came across was bone and muscle loss that astronauts suffer from due to microgravity. So, to mitigate this issue they need to exercise at least 2 hours a day as shown in the following sites: site 1 , site 2 , site 3.
Also, we found that astronauts eating habits completely shift in space as they have to dehydrate and rehydrate the food as shown here.
The websites liked above in order:
- https://www.nasa.gov/hrp/bodyinspace
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3490786/
- https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/29/16217348/nasa-iss-how-do-astronauts-exercise-in-space
- https://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/stem-on-station/ditl_exercising
- https://iss.jaxa.jp/kids/en/life/06.html
- https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/what-do-astronauts-eat-space
Hackathon Journey
It was a very fun experience as it enabled us to work with other members that we truly enjoyed working with. We go to learn a lot of stuff from each other's experiences. We collaborated and united our skills to come up with a well-rounded project. We gained a lot of information about space and the dark side of being astronauts which changed our perspectives and destroyed the stereotypes about the job that it's all fun and games. We were inspired to choose this challenge as we liked the concept of creating a joyful game for youth to educate them about space and the challenges that astronauts face daily and how they can be overcome. It also combined our two favorite fields which are app designing and space. When we read the challenge we wanted to create an educational game the appealed to middle schoolers and they actually find it fun. So, we put ourselves in their shoes and tried to think of features that they'd find interesting. That's when we first came up with the tasks and rewards concept. Also, we thought about the VR version of the game as it'll add move life to the game and put the player in the needed mindset.
References
The websites and data that we used:
- https://www.nasa.gov/hrp/bodyinspace
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3490786/
- https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/what-do-astronauts-eat-space
- https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/29/16217348/nasa-iss-how-do-astronauts-exercise-in-space
- https://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/stem-on-station/ditl_exercising
- https://iss.jaxa.jp/kids/en/life/06.html
- https://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/pdf/569954main_astronaut%20_FAQ.pdf
The tools:
1 - Scratch "to design the game"
Tags
#game #voyage #Mars #education
Global Judging
This project has been submitted for consideration during the Judging process.