High-Level Project Summary
Most dreams realizations start at an early age between 10 and 14 years old. However, communicating the information in a fun way can be tough sometimes. Our game kept a child’s perspective for space, while adding to it ‘facts’. Therefore, we tackled a 2D cartoonish design to better dive into the kids' world. The solution consists of 8 levels. In each, the player will learn one or more space challenges like health, radiation, isolation. Some of the astronauts duties like watering plants and repairing O2 tanks. However they will have to solve a puzzle in order to fulfill their duties. Like that, our game will build the next generation of space enthusiasts in the simplest and most direct way.
Link to Project "Demo"
Link to Final Project
Detailed Project Description
Despite the fact that Lebanon, our beloved country, was going through electricity and WIFI problems, Roumians team fought all odds in order to make our solution feasible.
Now, to make our game possible, we worked on Unity as our main Game development software using C# programming language, GitHub as our main repository to share the game among us and Balabolka software for text-to-speech AI voice.
How we used Unity?
Each level had a unique coding spirit, making each level unique by its own. However level 4, 5 and 7 had common features, and a common coding style. We thus used physics in order to move the player and let them jump. Added triggers on colliders to detect when the player is near a challenge. Not to forget the timer system that was introduced to the game in order to harden levels and expose the player to pressure similar to the one astronauts go through while in space. Now our 2D assets were either used from the internet and modified by ourselves or created entirely by us.
How we used Balabolka in Unity?
We made voices using an AI to make the sound of "Fairouz", the AI in the game, which will activate or speak once there is a message on screen.
Detailed level description:
Level 1: Mission Launch - Easy
Before going into space, astronauts need to make sure they carry all the essential things with them in order to survive.
level picture: level 1.
What will the player do?
They will have to pick the most essential things astronauts can’t live without in space from a series of items.
What will the player learn?
This level is basically the entry level of our game, therefore is characterized by its easiness. It will thus teach the player all the *most* essential things astronauts need during space missions.
Level 2: Can You Get Your Spaceship To Mars Safely? - Intermediate
A trip to Mars is never a straight line from planet Earth to planet Mars, but rather in a specific orbit to minimize distance, thus fuel consumption and therefore cost.
level picture: player has to choose how many kerosene fuel before launch.
level picture: count down for rocket to launch.
level picture: no more fuel message.
What will the player do?
They will have to approximate the amount of fuel needed to get to Mars.
Then, will have to orient their spaceship to keep it on orbit.
What will the player learn?
This level teaches them few of the challenges a space rocket will face to get to Mars and a notion introduction about fuel cost, while keeping things interesting and fun for them.
Level 3: Fixing Solar Panel - Easy
Powering your spaceship for a Mars mission, is not like powering your house to illuminate your Christmas tree.
On Earth, power and electricity come from power plants most of which rely on fuels and non-renewable energies.
But now, they’re in space. Sun is their energy, their unlimited power bank.
level picture: level 3.
What will the player do?
They will have to stop the solar panel’s agitated movement in order to supply power for the spaceship.
What will the player learn?
They will learn a little bit about the struggle astronauts go through in order to fix a solar panel orientation.
Level 4: Escape Space Room - Hard
During space flight, astronauts have a lot of duties to do.
Some of them require technical repairs and scientific experiments.
This level teaches you some of the essential and most common tasks astronauts perform in an escape room style level.
level picture: puzzle to solve to know what order to water plants in.
level picture: success message for watering a lemon plant in space.
level picture: sudden rash message to integrate timing factor.
level picture: puzzle to solve in order to fix leaking O2 tanks.
What will the player do?
They will have to solve 3 puzzles directly related to astronauts tasks. Each will give them a digit for their password, to escape space room. The password will eventually turn out to be an important year in space history, the year the first astronaut went into space. However a sudden “rash”(the one astronaut usually gets in space due to lack of sleep) will upset their calm to integrate a timing pressure factor for them to finish quick.
What will the player learn?
Our main added value was to inaugurate the ‘puzzle’ idea in order to teach middle scholars about space missions. In this level, they will learn all about astronauts’ common duties like watering plants, fixing electrical wires and repairing O2 tanks, while introducing a timing factor caused by the “rash” astronauts get in space due to lack of sleep.
Level 5: Health Check - Intermediate
Astronauts face a lot of health problems caused by lack of gravity and sleep disruption while in space.
This is why, they must undergo medical checks and be aware of sudden solar particles events of which radiation can really harm them.
level picture: astronaut under scan.
level picture: astronaut doing treadmill exercise.
level picture: astronaut got hit by a solar particle event and have minimal timing to reach out to pharmaceuticals.
What will the player do?
They will have to go through a medical scan to get information about their health before taking a vitamin pill. This is where we give them a detailed report about their bones condition. The scanning result will thus advise them to do some treadmill exercising for a period of time and explain the indispensable benefits working out in space has. We will advise them to take some vitamin pills at this point too. All described in the detailed report. However, to spice things up, every 20 seconds a solar particle event happens, through which the player is expected to hide. But, we do give them one chance of surviving by taking pharmaceuticals.
We have also introduced 2 space flight hazards, which are isolation and space radiation. Now, in order to overcome their solitude, we will suggest they contact their family. But, oops! Some dials seem broken. They’ll have to solve a puzzle in order to fix it, while staying alert for solar events.
Note: this level describes perfectly one of the suggested considerations written in our game’s guideline.
What will the player learn?
The player will learn about health and mental problems astronauts encounter in space, with suggested solutions.
Level 6: Mission Land On Mars – Intermediate
Mission landing are the hardest. But do you think you’re up to it?
level picture: level 6 landing.
level picture: bad landing message.
What will the player do?
They will have to orient the spaceship to safe land it on Mars.
What will the player learn?
This level shows you a glimpse of the challenges landing on Mars has.
Level 7: Settling On Mars - Hard
After 3 yrs. in space, you have finally arrived on the red planet. You already have been losing 1% of your mass every month…and have faced enough health problems… So what’s next? Gravity here is 3/8 that of Earth…
This level teaches you some of the duties, like planet exploration, experiments, even challenges, like health and gravity challenges Astronauts go through after settling down.
level picture: organs health checks.
level picture: puzzle to solve in order to fix MOXIE device due to a sudden failure in it.
level picture: gathering Martian rocks for testing with the help of rover.
What will the player do?
They will have to endure a medical scan that will show them brain, heart, bones and muscle damage report results from their last 3 years in space, with a comparison between what the previously mentioned organs are supposed to look like versus now. They will also have to rotate an antenna in order to fix communications with the satellites. Why? Because we want them to use the laptop to research more about their health (This is where we included links to multiple studies inspired by the agencies’ data). Now we needed to find a way for them to test the acquired knowledge in a simple way and include both space flight hazards: distance from earth and closed environment; we will thus direct them to the crew doctor. However, they cannot stay long chatting about their medical conditions due to the closed environment room, or else, the room will need to be disinfected. We also included an option to collect some Martian rocks and test it under the microscope.(this is where we added a NASA link about the GongGong Martian rocks to stimulate Martian curiosity).
But oops! Did we forget to mention the sudden oxygenator failure... in which the player will have to solve a puzzle in order to fix and therefore save the crew.
What will the player learn?
The player will learn about some of the duties, like planet exploration, experiments, even challenges, like health and gravity challenges astronauts go through after settling down.
Level 8: Rescue Team, Earth here we come! - Intermediate
After 10 years on Red Planet; they have already lost enough bone density and muscle weight here, enough isolation and little human interaction...It is time for them to return home and reunite with their family again. But now really how have this trip cost them health wise?
level picture: puzzle to solve in order to get back to Earth.
level picture: astronaut going through rehabilitation, eye test.
level picture: astronaut training their neurosensory networks.
What will the player do?
The player will have to solve a puzzle by guessing which 3 of the 10 space agencies are sending a crew member to save the astronaut. Once solved, they get to earth without getting too much into details about the trip back but rather focusing on the rehabilitation process. We made sure to include balance checks, eye tests and wearing a G-suit to get their blood pressure up back to their head.
What will the player learn?
The player will learn all about the rehabilitation process astronauts go through.
Space Agency Data
Information and gallery pictures were all taken from the NASA space apps and from the nasa.gov website resources.
We made sure to include all space flight hazards: Space radiation, Isolation, Distance from earth, gravity and closed environment, through our game levels.
We took in consideration the potential features to add according to our game's guidelines.
We used real situations and data to make the gaming knowledge experience as realistic as possible and therefore reach our goal : educate our 10-14 years old audience.
For instance:
- level 1 : Most essential items astronauts carry with them in space in order to survive.
- level 2: Introduction of the fuel problem for a trip to Mars, along with the orbit path to follow and common risks on the road.
- level 3: Solar panel fix. Introduction to solar powering in space.
- level 4: Introduction to astronauts duties: watering plants(to highlight the importance of space gardening), fixing wires and O2 tanks(to introduce astronauts duties and the pressure factor they go through when sudden technical failures happen). Also, introduction to skin rash and its cause with link to actual research paper about it.
- level 5: Level 5 was purely inspired by a potential consideration suggestion in our challenge's guideline." Your game could include options to ensure that the avatar sleeps, exercises, hides in a shielded area when a solar particle event suddenly occurs, fixes communications systems when that solar particle event damages them, consumes antioxidants, communicates with the family back on Earth, etc. "
- level 6: Introduction to few landing difficulties.
- level 7: Inclusion of health reports, discovery reports( Martian rocks), research links to stimulate scientific curiosity like recommended. Also, introduction of sudden 'oxygenator' failure and quick overview about MOXIE device.
- level 8: Rehabilitation process.
Hackathon Journey
The Hackathon Journey began with a team call problem, and ended with a solution.
We were very excited to participate in this competition. We wanted to be able to impact with our solution the space community, and benefit our middle schooler audience.
The best way for kids to learn is through a game, and the best way to train their brain and fix the information is through repetition... thanks to our puzzle idea, they will undeniably repeat, repeat and repeat the level more than once. Thus get to review the information more than once.
Overall, by making our solution, which is the creation of the educative game, we learned ourselves more about the health risks, challenges and consequences.
We mainly wanted kids to find the information easy to grasp and in an indirect way, without making our teaching strategy obvious.
When we first checked the resources and data, we weren't exactly sure how we could teach it kids...So we tried to cease the complexity by doing a whole bunch of research ourselves to communicate it with kids. So step by step, the transformation of a complex information into a child's simple and fun game began!
References
· First man in space: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/sts1/gagarin_anniversary.html
· fuel consomption : https://sites.suffolk.edu/sztamfatergarychen/2015/10/23/space-travel-to-mars/
· 5 space flight hazards (isolation, radiation, closed env,...) : https://www.nasa.gov/hrp/hazards
· Bone damage of space flight : https://genelab-data.ndc.nasa.gov/genelab/accession/GLDS-345/
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/benefits/bone_loss.html
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/subregional_bone.html
a 6 month stay in space takes around 3 to 4 years to recover bone health.
· Mars rock sample: https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/5828/hardened-lava-meets-wind-on-mars/
· Heart dizziness : https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/b4h-3rd/hh-vascular-studies-in-space
https://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/research/2007/imagefusion.html
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/heart_health_cardio_ox
· Brain and vision: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/neuromapping
· Bone and muscles: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/station-science-101/bone-muscle-loss-in-microgravity/
· Co2 to o2, MOXIE: https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-perseverance-mars-rover-extracts-first-oxygen-from-red-planet
· Minute to contact earth: https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/spacecraft/rover/communications/->level 7
· Immune system: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004220309445?via%3Dihub
https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/news-articles/your-immune-system-in-space
· Rehabilitation process: https://www.nasa.gov/content/when-you-land-can-you-stand-one-year-mission-video-miniseries-functional-performance
Tags
#Game #SpaceGame #Puzzle #Unity #Mars #MarsLanding #KidGame #SimpleGame #Fun
Global Judging
This project has been submitted for consideration during the Judging process.