High-Level Project Summary
We believe that what makes our project stand out is its integration of a storytelling for the purpose of explaining and enlightening the public on the Parker Solar Probe and what exactly it does. There are a lot of resources on the PSP scattered across the internet, but by compiling and weaving them together in a compelling way, we are able to very effectively capture the interest of users and help them better understand the PSP and its mission. Of course, as a team of 2, we were limited in the amount of work we could do, so the website isn't fully developed. But it does have incredible potential to be developed further in the future, whether by us or by community contributors.
Link to Final Project
Link to Project "Demo"
Detailed Project Description
For our project, we built a website that hosted various exploratory tools the user can go through. For the website, we used HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and ran it through our local servers via ViteJS. For more complicated features like the 3D model, we used ThreeJS to load the .glb file and added orbit controls to make it interactive. For the 3D model specifically, we made it so that the user can use their mouse to view the probe from different angles and see in detail each component of the probe. We also added other features like a hamburger-style menu bar and buttons to make the user experience simpler and minimalistic.
Space Agency Data
We did use the 3D model of the Parker Solar Probe, which made it onto our website. But that took significantly longer than expected, so as a team with only 2 members, we really struggled to get a lot or progress done on the project. Of course, we have many ideas that we would be happy to implement further. The main data display that we were working would have used the FITS files and png files from the WISPR dataset, but sadly we weren't able to finish it in time.
Hackathon Journey
Our team specifically chose this challenge because we were passionate about informing the general public about cool technology and how said technology is impactful. Our Space Apps experience has been a roller coaster of emotions. From frustration to elation we improved our mastery over some tools we used like JavaScript as well as learned some new skills like how to use the GLTFLoader in ThreeJS.
References
Data:
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/2356/parker-solar-probe-3d-model/
https://wispr.nrl.navy.mil/wisprdata
https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/
Images:
https://freesvg.org/cupped-hand-silhouette
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SARS-CoV-2_without_background.png
http://parkersolarprobe.jhuapl.edu/Spacecraft/index.php#Instruments