High-Level Project Summary
Our project is basically a webtoon, telling the story of Parker. The challenge we picked is called "On the Way to the Sun" which requires us to tell the story of Parker to the young audiences. Taking Parker as our main character, we created an online comic (webtoon). We didn't aim to make it apealing to the people who are already interested in science, but also to people who do not know much about science. To do that, we decided to adopt the story to a whole different universe, in which both Parker and Sun are human. To tell the story, we think that using webtoon is a good method because it is free, easily accessible, visually captivating, and interesting for young audience.
Link to Final Project
Link to Project "Demo"
Detailed Project Description
To attract the attention of young people, we tried to create a whole different universe with the same plot. In that universe Sun is the empress, who has a curse, dangereous to touch which is a representation of the extreme heat. Also she is the source of solar winds, the trouble for humanity. This all makes Parker curious and by the support of his father, Eugene Parker, he takes on the adventure. To make him get prepared, we adopted the real Parker's equipments to human form. On his way to Sun, Parker sees the effects of solar wind with his own eyes. Also he gets the chance to meet Venus who will keep him on the orbit. After three years he finally becomes the first to touch the Sun. We hoped to make the magnificent story of Parker Solar Probe get recognized by every young person.
Space Agency Data
We mostly used the resources that NASA gave us about the challenge. Our team firstly did the research about the project and we tried to adopt it to our webtoon story. We picked the information that we can mention. For example Parker's equipments for this journey, Venus helping our solar probe with the orbit, the solar winds affecting people in many ways, the Sun's extreme heat in Corona that makes it impossible to approach it. Then we started to create the sceniario. For all the information, we used NASA's resources and we also added some pictures of Parker Solar Probe in our webtoon.
Hackathon Journey
A friend of us told us about the competition. At first we were very hesitant about joining. But we thought that the experiences we gain in the competition would improve us. While choosing a challenge, we wanted to choose one so that we would both have fun and have knowledge. When we arrived at the competition area, some of us started researching and others started illustrating. We had fun being with other creative people. The mentors and other organizers helped us with our project. The treats, the drinks and the games in the area were pretty good. After a sleepless night, our webtoon draft was ready. After narrowly catching our webtoon, we thought we wouldn't be in the top 20. But contrary to our estimation, we entered the top 20 and had the chance to present our project, which we worked hard for, to the jury.
References
NASA's articles "Traveling to the Sun: Why Won’t Parker Solar Probe Melt?", "Parker Solar Probe: Humanity’s First Visit to a Star", "Solar Tour Pit Stop #8: Venus", "Five Questions About Space Weather and Its Effects on Earth, Answered" helped us with scientific facts we needed for the story.
Tags
#ParkerSolarProbe, #theSun, #theVenus, #solarwinds, #carbonshields, #webtoon, #webcomic