Solar Explorers

Mumbai | Unlocking the Secrets of the Sun

Solar Explorers

High-Level Project Summary

Space and technology is developing at an enormous extent since decades in the whole world. Most of the countries have given their best contribution for the development of space sector. But how many of the us are aware about the eminent space exploration missions (especially Sun-related space missions) carried out by the excellent space agencies like NASA? To know more about them, our team has developed a special application to help public access the information about all these missions. You can learn about these missions in a detail but in a fun way by attempting fun quizzes, puzzles, accessing E-books, videos and blogs, and exploring a lot of science and art challenges.

Link to Project "Demo"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KeDWV4fofc

Link to Final Project

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NFHfU3gndSwMnZD9G3HnTpT8RHn0xEQY/view?usp=sharing

Detailed Project Description

What did we exactly develop?

Our technique aims to prioritizes youth interactions and discussions by children as well as adults regarding space missions. We have focused on developing their Logistic skills, creativity and imagination through various means. On that note, we have developed a mobile application where people can access Facts, Videos, Blogs, Audios as well as attempt interesting quizzes, puzzles and take up art challenges as well. Our idea was to include technical as well as artistic elements to make the app more engaging and productive.

COMPLETE WORKING OF APP VIDEO:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k30i3WuIN2Y

*the app made is an android application, desktop version is not yet available.

Working of the Application and its content:

Students are usually fascinated by quick animations and colorful content. Hence, our designed app opens with cool animations and guides the audience directly to the main page. This main page flashes up following tabs to be explored:

The Factual Hub
Parker Solar Probe
Sun Fun Quiz
Puzzles
E-books, Video and audio library
Art Challenges

The follow image shows the home page of the application:

Tab 1: The Factual Hub:

Here, students can access interesting and amusing facts about Sun, its atmosphere, its role in our solar system and all the mysterious secrets which students have never explored before. The sole purpose of including this is to spread knowledge but in minuscule quantity so that students are able to grasp them easily.

Tab 2: Parker Solar Probe:

Parker Solar Probe is one of the major sun-related mission studying sun very closely since a few years.

This tab gives students a brief overview of the mission in form of written content as well as videos regarding the launch and remarkable discoveries by Parker Solar Probe. It is one of the most important missions carried out for progress of the world. Studying sun and heliophysics is a crucial step in space technology. They can also access 3D model of Parker Solar Probe to study it closely and understand each and every part and its function. Providing all this information to the students will help them to build strong understanding about the Sun and Space.

Tab 3: Sun Fun Quiz:

Now, after grasping so much of information, where will students test themselves? To avoid this confusion, we have also created a platform to showcase their knowledge. Students can attempt fun quizzes and answer interesting questions. Even if their questions go wrong, to understand the concept of the question in a better manner, they can access the YouTube link of videos from world’s amazing space agencies to clear up their confusions. If given more time and support, we aim to develop one to one mentoring platform too for the students who are really keen to study space science, where they can clear their doubts directly through experts. Let’s make it more interactive and creative!

Tab 4: E-books Audio and Video Library:

What if I tell you that you can hear the sound of sun in space? Yes, you can! Here in the E-books tab, you can not only access Digital books but also lots of videos of Sun related missions and heliophysics. The main objective of ours here is to keep students engaged and encourage them to learn for the best, from the best!

Tab 5: Art Challenges:

To make it more engrossing we have added some artistic elements for all our creative kids to showcase their talents. There are a few art challenges they can take up and their motto will be to pictorially define space and explain various phenomenon using their creativity. Their artwork can be shared on all types of social media platforms using #proudsolarexplorers.

Link for the complete video of the art and craft workshop arranged by us:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62V683occBY&t=15s

Link of PowerPoint Presentation to know the project more:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1hQSKYA7wUx-Rgi1qk_JoVpDf1p8Lgjyu/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=110999151347897909460&rtpof=true&sd=true

What our next step would be if given more time to work on this project:

To not just limit the app for children and to make it affable for developers and researchers as well, lots of updates can be made in the application. Since we had limited time, we couldn’t include all the perspectives. But we will explain the idea in brief. Levels will be mentioned in the beginning and accordingly the type of audience accessing the content of app will be determined. At such times, when experienced and senior audience will access the application, they can access the compiled information altogether in the app. We planned to include weather analyzing system of the sun’s atmosphere, locate positions of solar arbitering missions and develop a system to study the surface of the Sun (About corona, Occurrence of solar flares, studying solar eclipses, etc.)

PROJECT CODE:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nLj0QGQtK_Fe9UPPdfOofWqXWzqB23A6/view?usp=sharing

Space Agency Data

How we used space agency data in our project?

We wanted to create best for today’s generation and for that purpose we got access to the best data from space agencies like NASA, JAXA, European Space Agency and many more. We have linked down all the resources below. Since students tend to have more visualizing ability, we used NASA’s videos from their YouTube Channel. They were very inspiring and we learned a lot from it. All the content in our application is from these space agencies so that people get direct access to authentic information.

Hackathon Journey

Our team has learned a lot in this journey. Being a student myself, I have explored a lot. I worked on my presentation skills and gave my best. My teammates have also been very supportive. Each of them is experts in their own work. Coding, Editing being their expertise, they have experienced new things in their journey too. We altogether as a team have been very punctual, supportive, interactive and gave our best as a team. This was a brilliant experience and we look forward to be here every year. We would also thank NASA to organize such events globally and give everyone opportunities to present their ideas. Also, we are very grateful to have such an amazing local lead team which constantly held our hand throughout the hackathon.

Our Experience and what inspired us to choose this challenge :

We are a team of young enthusiasts always ready to explore every little thing that inspires us. Our motto is to make every piece of information accessible to curious learners around the world who are fond of space and science. Sun being the closest star to the earth, how many citizens of this world have ever wondered what actually lies on the sun? Research proves that children are more curious and they tend to explore every little thing around them. To satisfy their curiosity we challenged ourselves to take up this challenge and work to bring out the best for them. For that reason, we wanted their own opinions on our idea. Hence a week before the event, we conducted a survey using google forms to know more about what they exactly want. To make it more accessible we developed two more forms in the native languages (Hindi and Marathi) to reach to a wider audience. Here are some screen shots of the responses we received.