High-Level Project Summary
We developed a GUI (General User Interface) in Simulink as a tool to demonstrate the way that a light curve changes with a range of variables. Initially, we aimed to cover different asteroid shapes as well as size, albedo, distance, and light source. When this proved too much for this hackathon, we focused on understanding the maths behind spheres and cuboids.This project is important as it makes light curves easier to understand because you can interact and see the consequences each variable has. There is also scope to model more complex shapes in future which can support space exploration and help us learn more about asteroids.
Link to Project "Demo"
Link to Final Project
Detailed Project Description
The final interface we created controls the brightness and distance from the Sun, and plots a light curve graph of this based on the users inputs.
Each slider acts as it's own app within the code and when the user sets a value, the plot button needs to be pressed and this will update in the code and subsequently the light curve graph. This provides a smoother user experience that can be simply navigated by any skill level.
We used a blood pressure template from Simulink App Designer as a base model to understand the coding behind creating apps in this way. The benefits of this style are the intuitive and interactive elements that communicate to all ages. The model also looks into the maths behind object observation and the difficulties that come along with that.
We hoped to achieve a user friendly interface which can be used for both research and education purposes.
For the final submission, Solidworks renders were also used in order to explain some of the maths challenges we faced.
Space Agency Data
Hackathon Journey
The Space Apps experience this year has been a quieter one than normal. With freshers fairs due to start next week, the event was somewhat empty without the buzz of fresh minds to take on the challenges. Nevertheless, it has been a fun experience!
We were inspired to pick this challenge as it combined an interest in asteroids with an interesting mathematical
We learned lots about light curves and the challenges around modelling complex polygons and how their visible surface area can change a lot.
his GUI was intended to help communicate the idea of light curves to any level of knowledge, and then could be adapted in the future to include other asteroid shapes and understand the relationships in more depth.
We used a blood pressure template from Simulink App Designer as a base model. to help us understand the app format. We then took inspiration from this to create our own GUI and
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Initially, we wanted the user to be able to change variables for distance, light wattage, asteroid size, angle of rotation, and asteroid shape, in order to see what happened to the resulting light curve. When that proved to be out of our time range, we focused in on modelling a sphere and looking into the mathematics behind the problem.
References
alcdef.org. (n.d.). ALCDEF Database. [online] Available at: https://alcdef.org/ [Accessed 2 Oct. 2021].
Bonilla, D. (2015). Light Curve Analysis. [online] NASA. Available at: https://www.nasa.gov/content/asteroid-grand-challenge/characterize/light-curve-analysis.
Lu, X.-P. and Jewitt, D. (2019) Dependence of Light Curves on Phase Angle and Asteroid Shape. The Astronomical Journal [online]. 158 (6), pp. 220. Available from: http://www2.ess.ucla.edu/~jewitt/papers/2019/LJ19.pdfdoi:10.3847/1538-3881/ab4ce4 [Accessed 2 October 2021].
Warner, B.D., Harris, A.W. and Pravec, P., 2009. The asteroid lightcurve database. Icarus, 202(1), pp.134-146.
mg.metric geometry - How can the visible surface area of a box at any angle be found? - MathOverflow
Tags
#asteroids #lightcurves #GUI #coding #app #education #research #
Global Judging
This project has been submitted for consideration during the Judging process.