IKIGAI

Awards & Nominations

IKIGAI has received the following awards and nominations. Way to go!

Global Finalist

IAGIKI – Be a Superhero by Learning!

High-Level Project Summary

IAGIKI is a game application that will help kids from 7 to 16 years old learn the environmental stresses of space travel and understand how diverse organisms deal with these stresses. Our game includes stresses such as extreme hypergravity and microgravity; lack of oxygen, supplies, and sleep; radiation and oxidative stress; and negative effects of board infections. Players will explore 20 different diverse organisms dealing with their cons and pros, changing the main character’s DNA sequence, and at the same time having fun with all the missions the game includes. IKIGAI is crucial because it brings a realistic experience that will arouse the children's interest making them explore biology.

Link to Final Project

https://github.com/HaR00ke/IAGIKI

Link to Project "Demo"

https://youtu.be/yNwwIXy5WZs

Detailed Project Description

IAGIKI? What is it? How does it work?

Firstly IAGIKI lets the player know the background information – the introduction of Professor Ping and his aims to explore the unknown, unheard part of space. As a part of his journey, he will face a lot of challenges in space which is briefly described at the start of the game to give the player starting point.

After this, the game starts and players have to control the actions of Professor Ping and try to survive during a 3 years flight. After the exploration of organisms, the player can change Professor’s DNA sequence by repairing up to 20 different organisms’ nucleotides accordingly, gaining traits of each of them that could increase and decrease (or both) survival rates. Some organisms might have resistance, some - vulnerable to some stresses, and others - with no big changes.

VARIABLES OF IAGIKI

Stresses:

Extreme Hypergravity
Extreme Microgravity
Oxygen Level
High Radiation
Oxidative Stress
Lack of Supplies
Lack of Sleep
Highly Risked Diseases

Organisms:

Fly larvae - Resistance to hypergravity during the launching and landing of the spacecraft.
Mice - Resistance to microgravity in space. Hyperactivity leads to high blood pressure. It may cause stroke and heart attack.
Henneguya salminicola (parasite) - No need for oxygen.
Deinococcus radiodurans (bacterium) - Resistance to radiation.
S. cerevisiae. - Resistance to oxidative stress as it has 2 SOD genes.
C. albicans. - Resistance to oxidative stress as it has 6 SOD genes.
A. fumigatus - Resistance to oxidative stress as it has 2 SOD genes.
C. neoformans var. gattii - Resistance to oxidative stress as it has SOD genes.
Tardigrade - Can live without food for a long time during cryptobiosis.
Bullfrog - Can live without sleep for a long time.
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) - Resistant to foreign organisms.
Elephant - Sleep 2 hours per day. Too heavy.
Whales - Too heavy.
Lugworms - Less need for oxygen. Due to microgravity can’t eat.
Turkey - Need for the specific environment.
Goose - Need for the specific environment.
Crocodile - Need for the specific environment.
American pygmy shrew - High need for food.
Koala - Sleep up to 20 hours per day.
Rabbit - It has no special features.

LABORATORY ROOMS

Library

In this zone, players can make their own research using unsummarized materials that were used for creating game concepts. There could find cons and pros to repairing the DNA of each of the 20 organisms. However, it is time-consuming and less interactive but so educational that it could be used when the player is stuck during completing the game. Materials include research papers, articles, and video materials.

Research Room

In this zone, players can repair DNA sequences of 20 different organisms and change the nucleotide sequence of the Professor giving positive and/or negative traits of chosen organisms. There are 20 in total organisms: 11 comparingly with positive traits that will give some stress resistance, 8 comparingly with positive traits that will worsen the situation, and 1 with scientifically no special trait. It is also possible to remove them back if the player thinks that it causes the death. The player may earn points depending on how much time Professor survived during the test launching on the launch zone, for which points the player can explore any organisms in the laboratory. This option will give any special traits of the organism in a few seconds. This information also could be collected in the library as it was mentioned above.

Launch Zone

After analyzing and changing the DNA sequences, the player can test on the launch zone. It will show how much time the Professor survived and the cause of the death. However, there will not be which specific organism has this trait that caused the death. After testing player will go to the past and have a chance to change the DNA sequence. If the player got everything right, the player will win!

IMPORTANT FACT

Different combinations of different organisms give different results – so our game considers 1,048,574 different cases.

What benefits does it have?

The benefits that the game application offers are that children have fun by learning through educational games, challenges and quizzes, making their own research, analyzing given materials and obvious features, and doing a literature review. We propose a game where children can become real researchers and where children may more interested in spatial science from a young age.

What do you hope to achieve?

We hope that children find this way of learning entertaining and that they will more interested in science specifically astrobiology and biology. We also hope that it will teach to researching skills such as data analysis, critical thinking, calculations of probabilities, and literature review.

What tools, coding languages, hardware, or software did you use to develop your project?

We developed our game application for Windows Operating System using a game engine called Godot Engine in GD Script (coding language). All of the used pixel images were created by our team using Aseprite (tool for pixel art), Procreate (drawing platform), Pixel Studio (tool for pixel art), Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe Photoshop. The data were collected and edited on Google Docs.

Space Agency Data

We used data that NASA offers regarding the environmental stresses of space travel in order to identify variables of our game that were used for further research – which organisms have resistance and vulnerability to these stresses. This is how we identified 20 organisms for our game. We used that data for small hints and we wanted players to come to these concepts by themselves. It explains why we choose as our platform the video game application.

Additionally, we used data from NASA Science, specifically Space Biology Programs to find out different organisms that have unusual traits. For instance, we used the Animal Biology section to learn more about mice and how they act in space. To visualize and get some additional qualitative data we used the recording of video from the board where we can monitor the actions of mice in space. Using our prior knowledge and other sources of information we compared the behavior of mice on Earth. That comparison also gave us an idea of increasing blood pressure in mice due to their hyperactivity in space. Adding such details gave us more variables, connecting organisms with each other and increasing the number of probable cases.

Hackathon Journey

Our experience in this NASA Space Apps Challenge was really special. We learned a lot about the physiobiology, environmental stresses of space travel, and about biology, how diverse organisms deal with these stresses. The main reason to work on that challenge was the social aspect of that – how it will contribute to our society. We really like the idea of doing socially valuable project making the learning process even more funnier. We ended up creating a game application about stresses and 20 organisms related to these stresses, which will be interactive and informative for kids. It also helps to develop researching skills such as data analysis, critical thinking, calculation of probabilities, seeing from different points of view, and literature review!

From the starting point, we were helping each other and faced every problem as a team. We never worked alone on a specific task, because by helping each other we could make things better and faster. These 36 hours went so fast, productive, and sweet as all of us were together!