High-Level Project Summary
We designed a multi-platform mobile app that gives our users easy access to vast amounts of NASA data in a simplified format. NASA POWER web service provides a wide variety of accurate data associated with the sun that helps us delve deeper into heliophysics. We also have a fun and interactive game where we have questions framed in a certain way that precisely explains the entire journey of the probe from the Earth to the Sun. In this way, we hope to take the users on a similar journey, emulating the entire experience. The user can progress further in the game by answering the questions given. It also has 3D models and animations that help the user visualize it better than ever before.
Link to Final Project
Link to Project "Demo"
Detailed Project Description
How does it work?
►When the user logs in through their Google account they are redirected to the home page that displays live news. They can also keep a track of the Parker solar probe with the help of the live updates available.
The first part of our game involves the voyage of the probe from the Earth to the Sun.
In this game, we have an interactive way of teaching people about the Parker Solar Probe vis-à-vis a quiz. The questions are framed in a certain way that precisely explains the entire journey from the Earth to the Sun. In this way, we hope to take the users on a similar journey, emulating the entire experience. The user can progress further in the quiz by answering the questions given. It also has 3D models and animations that not only help the user visualise it but also give them a sense of accomplishment every time they pass a level.
The second part of the game involves collecting data and sending it back to Earth, just like the probe does. The user will have to navigate through obstacles or space debris to avoid a crash and continue collecting data. In the end, the user will be presented with the data they have managed to collect in the form of easy-to-understand graphs.
What benefits does it have?
► It presents data in a simple, and basic format, thus making even nonscientists capable of understanding it. It also has captivating animations which are rewarding and provide you with an incentive to play the games even more. It is a simple and minimalistic app that can be used by people of all age groups irrespective of their technological abilities.
What do you hope to achieve?
►We hope to ignite curiosity in people’s minds about space and the Sun. As mentioned above the Parker Space Probe is a marvel of engineering and technology and has helped us understand mysteries we have not been able to solve before. We hope that more people become aware of how revolutionary this is for the future of astrophysics.
NASA and other space agencies have carried out several such missions and shedding light on it is only going to help spread awareness about the feats mankind has achieved and will only go on to inspire the youth to take a keener interest in such matters.
What tools, coding languages, hardware, or software did you use to develop your project?
►Software used:
- VS code: For coding our app as well as its various features
- Blender: For 3D animation about the Parker Solar Probe and its journey to the sun
- Android Studio: For testing and debugging our app
- Google Docs: For collaborating on content creation
►Languages used:
- Dart
- Java
- Kotlin
What is the future scope of your project?
- More unique and different forms of data representations.
- Make our application multi-lingual so everyone around the world can access this educational content.
- Implementing the data points into musical notes that can be played by the user as different sounds of varying pitch and loudness depending upon the position of the data point in a graph. We can also let the users download these sounds and let them remix it.
- We also wanted to include a game similar to basketball where the user will have to flick a finger on the screen to throw a projectile into a hoop or basket. However, there will be solar winds on the left and/or right which will skew your trajectory. So the objective of the game will be to compensate for the varying solar winds' speed and try to shoot as many projectiles into the basket to gain points. This will also teach them about solar winds and electromagnetic fields and how they affect the trajectories of probes and satellites.
Space Agency Data
We designed a multi-platform mobile app that gives our users easy access to vast amounts of NASA data in a simplified format. NASA POWER web service provides a wide variety of accurate data associated with the sun that helps us delve deeper into heliophysics.
We scraped the data from the official NASA website and made an API that stores the scraped data in a database. The API is hosted on PythonAnywhere. We then used the API service to extract all the data we needed including the live news of the solar parker probe along with information about solar winds (Bz GSM, Phi GSM, speed, temperature, and density) amongst other things. The data is then processed and visualized in our app that is programmed in Flutter.
We made extensive use of the NASA 3D resources library (https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/2356/parker-solar-probe-3d-model/), which provided a 3D model for the Parker Solar Probe. These allowed us to develop a more attractive UI with fancy animations.
Data collected from the Parker Solar Probe is modelled into a quiz with an intriguing storyline. As the user progresses in the game they get to see the assembly of the probe and the quiz ends once the probe has reached the Sun.
In the second game, the user gets to see the data the Parker Solar Probe has collected in its journey till now in easy-to-understand graphs. They can see the solar wind speeds, temperature and density of gases in space.
Hackathon Journey
How would you describe your space apps experience?
This was a brand new experience for the entire team. Although we had individually taken part in hackathons before, this was the first time participated in one as a team. Due to the team’s limited knowledge of space technology, we spent hours researching every problem statement. We tried to align our skill sets, goals and knowledge of the topic to choose the best possible problem statement. The entire Space Apps Challenge was a delightful journey with a mix of emotions ranging from disappointment to failure but the combined motivation and enthusiasm emanating from our teammates helped us to push further and do the extra bit. After the completion of our project, we are excited to see how our solution can help and impact people.
What did you learn?
Apart from the technical skills that we learned, we have gained a ton of knowledge about the space missions carried out by NASA to the Sun, specifically with regard to the Parker Solar Probe mission. In our exploration, we got to know about the ‘catapult’ method of sending the probe towards the Sun, the functions of the different instruments on the probe and the kind of data it collects. We were fascinated by the workings of the Sun and the mysteries we are yet to uncover about it.
Along with the extensive space knowledge, we learnt how to use Flutter to develop a mobile application. We implemented Text-To-Service software in Flutter and made an API as well. Since we used 3-dimensional models, we learned how to use Blender and created animations of the assembly of the model of the Parker Solar Probe.
What inspired your team to choose this challenge?
The challenges that caught the team’s eye specifically were the ones where we were required to teach the public. Educating others is a passion that the entire team shares since we believe that it is only through sharing of knowledge that mankind is able to move forward. This ties in with our team motto - “Evolve or be extinct”.
This project also challenged us to be more creative than ever, something which we don’t excel at which meant we were put outside of our comfort zone. This was a challenge that we were up to take.
What was your approach to developing the project?
We began by diving our team of 6 into 3 different teams based on their strengths. From developing the UI to customising the 3-dimensional model, creating the games and researching how to implement certain libraries, each team had a certain set of responsibilities that they carried out.
How did your team resolve setbacks and challenges?
This was our first NASA hackathon and it was quite overwhelming for us given the vast and extremely detailed resources. However, after putting in the effort, it became easier to understand and use. We made a mobile application for the first time so naturally, we faced a few errors. However, with good spirits and high ambitions and more importantly, pooling our knowledge together we solved all these errors and finished our project on time.
References
We created an API that directly scrapes data from the following 2 websites
https://luminaryspaceapps.pythonanywhere.com/featuredataall
https://luminaryspaceapps.pythonanywhere.com/currentdata/1
Using the posts from here in the form of live news of the Parker Solar Probe
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/search/?search=parker+solar+probe&sort_by=relevance&chunk=0
Using the Orbits and Live data from here
Used this as the Parker Solar Probe 3D model as the basis of all our 3D animations
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/2356/parker-solar-probe-3d-model/
Used this to do our research into additional features and information from here
Used this to gather most of the information about the sun from here
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/the-heliopedia#Supergranules
Used this to gather information on the Instruments aboard the Parker Solar Probe
https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/parker-solar-probe-instruments
Used this to gather information on the rocket used to launch the Parker Solar Probe into space
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_IV_Heavy#cite_note-21
Used this for information on Orbits and Angular momentum
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duXGzEVf5LA&t=376s&ab_channel=TheInfographicsShow
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-does-the-slingshot-ef/
Used this for global warming awareness and also about the Ozone layer
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2020nasa-data-aids-ozone-hole-s-journey-to-recovery
Used this for facts about Orbits
https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/5-8/features/orbit_feature_5-8.html
Used this for information regarding image capturing of Venus
Used this for facts about instrument
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/traveling-to-the-sun-why-won-t-parker-solar-probe-melt
Used this interaction with NASA scientist (Kelly Korreck) not just for information but also motivation when things got difficult
Built up our interest to do more research on the entire journey of the Parker Solar Probe
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/2356/parker-solar-probe-3d-model/
Tags
#solar, #parkerspaceprobe, #information, #education, #youth, #app, #impact, #nasa, #flutter, #data, #teamwork, #blender, #3D, #caricature, #livenews, #texttospeech