High-Level Project Summary
We have made a real-world data-loaded text-based game for blind and deaf-blind people that requires building a biological superhero to survive the challenging environment of space, including a "ViBraille" glove that digitally delivers braille letters to our target user. Mission and biological research data made available by NASA, Genelab, and various other researches helped us populate the game’s database which helped the UX mimic the possible real-world situations. Thus users will get to know harsh space environments and organisms with the ability to tackle them. Research, interaction, access to data, and other fields will open up for the users through our unique solution to the challenge.
Link to Final Project
Link to Project "Demo"
Detailed Project Description
The Enablers:-
At the core of our solution lies the Braille Alphabet. Braille is a simple tactile written language that uses a 3 by 2 dot matrix to indicate various letters of the alphabet by having some dots raised.
We're using this age-old tried and tested method of communication to digitally convey text on the screen and bring it to a low-cost, digitally driven format to make digital braille accessible for all.
We're calling this "ViBraille". Our ViBraille Glove uses vibration motors in an identical 3 by 2 matrix as the Braille Alphabet. This intuitive design allows anyone with braille knowledge to be able to use this device instantly upon wearing it.
Over Bluetooth connectivity, the Astroventure game streams text strings over to the "ViBraille" Glove. The UI for Astroventure is text-based and the UX has been designed specifically for the blind and deaf-blind communities.
The game contains a guide section with information on various space exploration challenges and different kinds of biological species that have fascinating features that may help them in such challenging situations. The objective is for the player to study the mission brief which is generated from planet data, space data, and other mission challenge information gathered from NASA, the European Space Agency, and other sources of information.
The Technicals:-
The game is built with Flutter. A cross-platform app development framework. We chose Flutter as it allows easy porting to different platforms, increasing the accessibility of our game. Moreover, our teammate working with app development is most familiar with Flutter in comparison to other frameworks.
The game connects to "ViBraille" Glove over Bluetooth. It uses serial communication to stream the text that is on the screen directly to the user wearing the glove.
The "ViBraille" Glove uses 6-cell vibration motors. They replicate the tactility of braille letters through simultaneous vibrations in specific configurations according to the braille alphabet. For the brain of "ViBraille", we’re using an ESP32 as it comes packaged with Bluetooth connectivity hardware. The glove uses a 3.7V 850mAh battery which can run the device for 1.5 hours of continuous use.
The Future:-
We believe our inclusive approach to this challenge will not only inspire people with blindness or deaf-blindness to participate more in these fields but will also inspire others to work more in this regard. We hope to see a world where the people with disabilities and those without have no longer a difference in the opportunities they have and both can live as an equal to the other.
Space Agency Data
This challenge required us to know the difficulties we have to face in space exploration. NASA has been researching for 50 years what happens to the human body in space. We used the summary of all the research from this link.
Also, we could find psychological problems that astronauts face on NASA's website. This link shows how space exploration disrupts one's sleep cycle.
One of mankind's dreams is to colonize space and the harsh environment of exoplanets is one of the biggest challenges we have to face in space. NASA has all the data from solar system planets here which motivated us to design the challenges accordingly.
For example, one of the key challenges the astronauts have to face is radiation. NASA has already done some extensive work about it which we could get a hold of here. There are also some other researches. The treasure map for water ice on mars and the plans of NASA for selecting a potential landing site has hinted at some of the guides about the environments of mars.
Hackathon Journey
It was our first hackathon as a team and it was a mesmerizing experience. We have been working on reinforcing “ViBraille” for a while but this hackathon was a completely new experience. We have learned about teamwork and coordination on a bigger scale. The work environment was stimulating and friendly for generating new ideas.
The core challenge was to build a platform where blind and deaf-blind people can interact and learn about the space in a recreational way. We had to collect and process data from different databases & research papers and use APIs to give the information provided in the game a firm base. Also, we had to ensure a comfortable and consistent flow of the interactive data to the user, for which we had to redesign “ViBraille” a few times, which made it lighter, more responsive, and cheaper than before. The application software was the bridge between the data we got from NASA and our users, which eventually got better and better from discussion and revision. All of these were possible because of the steady and uninterrupted work environment that this hackathon provided in a pretty joyful way.
Even though we had a great time while working, we had some major set back just before our submission deadline. Our laptop froze and crashed four times while editing and rendering, which disrupted our work progress heavily. But luckily we were able to identify the problem, which was an insufficient amount of memory. So we took apart our other laptop, pulled out the RAM from it, and installed it on our rendering laptop temporarily which eventually solved our problem.
The amount of experience we gathered from here was astounding and inspiring. We had to work overnight to complete our tasks but we enjoyed this sleepless night a lot. Of course, all of these could not have been possible without our honorable mentor who helped us a lot before and during the hackathon. All other mentors were also helpful. They checked on us frequently and gave us valuable notes. Finally, the hackathon is almost over. We are leaving with sleepy eyes but we will come back again hoping to contribute more.
References
- https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/the-olm-the-blind-cave-salamander-that-lives-to-100
- https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/ijsem/10.1099/ijs.0.02503-0
- https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/how-deep-sea-snailfish-survive-mariana-trench#:~:text=In%20the%20Mariana%20Trench%E2%80%947%2C000,it's%20the%20region's%20top%20predator.
- https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-22853482
- https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/animals-heat-deserts-hottest-foxes
- https://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/03/pr0384.htm#:~:text=%E2%80%94It%20may%20be%20small%2C%20its,or%20about%20250%20degrees%20Fahrenheit.
- https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-22853482
- https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/animals/2019/04/how-the-worlds-deepest-fish-survives-bone-crushing-pressure
- https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/see-the-ugly-beauty-that-lives-in-a-toxic-cave
- https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/mar/24/dung-beetles
- https://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/ants/body-structure
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/45437017_Thermoregulation_in_reindeer
- https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/213/3/iii/9997/RED-FLAT-BARK-LARVAE-VITRIFY-TO-SURVIVE-150-C
- https://www.nps.gov/orpi/learn/nature/kangaroo-rat.htm#:~:text=Their%20bodies%20have%20developed%20amazing,from%20seeds%20that%20are%20eaten.
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6429206/
Tags
#inclusive, #blind, #deaf-blind, #vibraille, #game, #text-based-game