High-Level Project Summary
Space exploration seems thrilling to almost everyone. However, it involves several health hazards. Have you ever wondered what risks space travellers take for the greater good?We have developed “The Expedition”, a web game that allows space enthusiasts to explore the challenges of space travel and how the Earth extremophiles handle them while in space. Users will encounter several life-threatening events. There will be three extremophiles to choose from at each level in the game. If they select the correct option, their game characters will transform into superheroes integrating those extremophilic abilities to complete the current level and advance to the next one.
Link to Final Project
Link to Project "Demo"
Detailed Project Description
We have made an interactive game consisting of slides. The player is faced with a survival challenge and selects an organism that does best at dealing with that stress, also taking context into consideration. Once they select an answer, which may be right, wrong, or even partially right, the reason for the chosen option’s suitability or (relative) unsuitability is revealed. For the correct answer, a condensed explanation of the organism’s survival mechanism is shown. Short mind-twisting hints which may or may not be relevant to the issue are provided for each option. Level by level, with every correct answer, these features are added to turn our character into a space superhero. The game has been partially prototyped on Figma, an interface design web application, and can be made interactive
This style of gameplay should inspire thought in every decision and understanding of context, while also teaching the audience about some organisms that have special abilities to deal with the stresses of spaceflight and the mechanisms behind it.
With the addition of more levels, an enhanced storyline, and context-based problems, our game can become an educational tool that teaches and inspires the audience to know more about these challenges and provoke thought on how they may be solved.
Space Agency Data
We used these resources to learn about human risks in spaceflight and select options for our game. We have also used a couple of experiments and made references to their results.
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/experiments-in-space-how-will-bacteria-adapt-in-microgravity
https://www.nasa.gov/hrp/5-hazards-of-human-spaceflight
https://humanresearchroadmap.nasa.gov/risks/
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=942
https://www.nasa.gov/topics/shuttle_station/features/pseudomonas.html
Hackathon Journey
This entire journey trying to work on this challenge with EXPLORATEURS DE L'ESPACE team members has been truly incredible. Although the other team members came from different countries and had different cultural backgrounds, we found this collaboration to be delightful. However, the contributions of every team were equally significant in making our ideas a reality.
As we scanned through the data to design the game, we discovered how astounding the recent advancements made are in the field of space biology are. Also, the uniqueness of this challenge inspired us to design an interactive platform to understand and address real-life space travel challenges with a novel approach. This experience of working in a team, and diving deeper into our space exploration interests has been truly rewarding.
We would also like to extend our sincere gratitude to Farhan Anjum for these stunning digital illustrations and Saugat Jarif for patiently assisting us when things were difficult for us.
References
We used Figma for developing our slide game.
Resources used, aside from previously mentioned space agency data:
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/experiments-in-space-how-will-bacteria-adapt-in-microgravity
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.com%2Fpin%2F726909196100391975%2F&psig=AOvVaw0kTrC5nrkGl16PlcSIMVEf&ust=1664811695867000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAsQjRxqFwoTCNDHiIDxwfoCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE
https://www.remove.bg/upload
https://www.google.com/search?q=trichonephila+clavipes+drawing&rlz=1CAPRAG_enIN1001&sxsrf=ALiCzsYJWbIzQsZTxzglaoBGqRM5QZ_wbA:1664721385871&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj28-q24sH6AhUrUGwGHYBcATkQ_AUoAXoECAIQAw&biw=1050&bih=471&dpr=1.3
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0273117703002503
https://pinetools.com/invert-image-colors
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11536953/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41526-019-0091-2
https://www.nasa.gov/hrp/5-hazards-of-human-spaceflight
https://humanresearchroadmap.nasa.gov/risks/
https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1367105
https://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/The_Responses_of_Cyanobacteria_to_UV-B_Irradiation
https://hero.epa.gov/hero/index.cfm/reference/details/reference_id/5882361
https://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-what-happens-to-spiders-webs-in-space
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C3_carbon_fixation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioresistance
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinococcus_radiodurans
Tags
#game #quiz #webapp