Pathfinders

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/12e4Bon54hQ-Mzd2-W_Bb16VUr2y2yMnp?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Azo4W3AnY1ufGEMYqEshZhqyvFzCH2r1/view?usp=sharing

Development and methodology

SYNTHETICA, A journey into Spacce

Pathfinders Team. NASA Space Apps GDL 2022

Doing research and solving problems are part of the most important things that are done in science but is this useful if people do not get into science?

We know a lot of people do not see the interesting side of science to the point they prefer avoiding getting into this world or even learning from it. As a team, while we were organizing our ideas for the challenge we thought about a possible idea for trying to interpret the existing data available and getting more people into science, we concluded our best option was making interesting and interactive divulgation.  

Our project, SYNTHETICA, is a video game that has as its purpose of divulging the health risks of space travel, and the characteristics of the living beings that have been studied in space. We decided to implement the idea of RPG and open-world video games in our project due to their popularity in the community of young people. 

The way we introduce the idea of divulgation is through missions where the main objective in each mission has relation to the different studied living beings in space. Also while we advance in the game we have different loading screens with information about the risks of space travel. 

In the development of our videogame, we have been using different tools such as Unity, aseprite, Google Cloud services, DeepL as a translator, and Visual Studio for code development. We have been downloading free assets and sprites from itch.io which is an online page where indie video games developers upload resources from all over the world, a page from indies for indies. Also, we have been creating our own sprites in Aseprite. We have been coding in C# because it is the main language of Unity.

Each mission is different with respect to the obstacles but the objective is almost the same in all of them, collect enough samples to have enough data to let our synthetic organism adapt and evolve.

We started with the upload of the assets and sprites on unity, this took time, also it's important to mention that we lost all our progress when we finished this by a system failure.

After that, we create a scene in unity which consists of the movement of the spaceship along space. We had to create the tilemap, collision objects, the player (in this case the spaceship), 2 videogame cameras, and some physics for all these components. We have been creating sprites for the background in aseprite (Image 1). Also, we have been using LMMS and BFXR for the development of the music and sounds that are going to be used in the game.

Now the next step is to create the title screen, the options menu, the dialogue of the NPCs and player (to explain the story), and a new scene that basically is going to be the same as the spaceship scene but with the astronaut exploring the planets. Finally, we have to solve a few details of the game, these are: create a save and load system (to save the progress), solve the problems with the animations that we found in the first part, and if we have time would be nice develop a pause menu.

Image 1. Development of the first part of the game, the sprites and assets are uploaded and the tilemap it’s created. The movement of the ships and their physics are finished too. The camera it’s edited in a way that can follow the spaceship’s movement.

The project includes data from space missions of NASA, Roscosmos, and the Canadian Space Agency, especially those oriented to aerospace medicine and space biology. Data were taken on the risks of space flight on human physiology and experiments with organisms in the same environment to learn about their resistance to extreme conditions. 

By reviewing data from human research programs and space biology, we created the idea of acquiring the ability to fly with the risks of deep space to a minimum; thus, we built a virtual scenario where we gathered the best biological characteristics in an organism. Since the game poses the search for these characteristics, along the journey we face risks that must be reduced through science. 

Project feasibility and sustainability

SYNTHETICA, A journey into Spacce

Pathfinders Team. NASA Space Apps GDL 2022

As part of the business model, we have the premise of offering the game for free but at the same time insert advertising in the game itself in order to earn an income from this modality. Therefore, the project sustainability will be based on two versions of the game: one that includes ads and one ad-free version. 

The ads game version will be available to the general public, and the ads will be shown at the beginning and end of the game, as well as every time the user loses all their lives, in order to restart the missions. On the other hand, we will advertise our video game through social media ads and outreach to institutions. In case an institution is interested, the ad-free version will be sold to them.

The aforementioned, will help us with the improvements in development, as well with the possibility of improving the graphics and adding more missions and more story between each mission. Thus, every new user who gets to know our video game will have the opportunity to learn new things about this topic, even if people want to play the game again.

The population for which we have planned the video game is for children and teenagers because they can sow the seed of curiosity about space, science and more importantly how life on other planets could be possible. However, this game could be played by anyone interested in astrobiology. In the first instance, we would like to promote it in educational institutions to reach the target audience. In turn, promote it at science fairs, conferences, museums and also try to viralize it on social networks to get first-time users. 

Finally, to determine the approximate cost of the project we must take into account a benchmarking for the development of this technology in our country. Considering only the key employees to complete the main tasks such as design and programming, according to a presentation at Talent Land 2018, an estimated cost of 75,000 MXN in total could be contemplated. If we consider the percentage of inflation until 2022 the approximate total cost would increase to 90,127 MXN for the first version. Since the main idea is to popularize science through a videogame, it is estimated that part of the resources to be raised will be obtained from the government funds and also from sponsors interesed in collaboration with us, in exchange for providing them with our ad-free version for their use.

The project includes data from space missions of NASA, Roscosmos, and the Canadian Space Agency, especially those oriented to aerospace medicine and space biology. Data were taken on the risks of space flight on human physiology and experiments with organisms in the same environment to learn about their resistance to extreme conditions. 

By reviewing data from human research programs and space biology, we created the idea of acquiring the ability to fly with the risks of deep space to a minimum; thus, we built a virtual scenario where we gathered the best biological characteristics in an organism. Since the game poses the search for these characteristics, along the journey we face risks that must be reduced through science. 

Team’s presentation 

1. What is the name of the team?

              Pathfinders 

1. Who are the team members?

Alicia Aide Tellezgirón Sánchez

Cindy Victoria Flores Hernandez 

Emilio Yahir de la Cruz Navarro 

Salvador Quiroz Gaytán 

Stephanie Judith Ramírez González

1. What challenge did you choose?

Build a space biology superhero

1. What inspired you to choose this challenge?

Aide Tellezgirón S. I like space exploration, it's interesting to know that we might have the ability to not only study our solar system and beyond, but maybe one day we could go to these remote places and see it for ourselves. It's the next step on our path as explorers. 

Cindy Flores. Personally, my interest has always revolved around biology, so in my training I decided to study biotechnology. Besides, I am fascinated by imagining all the abilities that living beings have, especially microorganisms in terrestrial conditions, and imagining or discovering what happens in other environments is simply magical.

Stephanie Ramírez. The universe has always been the main area of ​​my interest. Throughout my life I have explored different branches within space, and Astrobiology is one of my favorites, so the intention of spreading and doing something so that more people know this area really motivated me.

Salvador Quiroz. I’m very interested in space exploring and all the characteristics that this has. I love programming and I thought that the development of this project will help me to evolve all my skills and abilities that I already have. In addition to that, I like to prove myself and the development of this project (related with biology) will be a very exciting challenge. 

Emilio de la Cruz. I was scrolling through facebook and I got interested in the ad that appeared in that moment, I decided to start participating in these events to have my own experiences since I already have met people that have participated in hackathons and simmilar events, every time they talked about it, it was interesting and amazing for me. In addition, I saw opportunities to acquire new skills related to my career and new skills that have nothing to do with.

1. What is your solution called and how does it work?

SYNTHETICA, a journey into spacce. 

Our team proposes a game that allows the player to learn about the health risks of space travel, as well as the characteristics of living beings that have been studied in space.

The objective of the game is:

• Raise awareness of the risks of space exploration and the need for studies to better meet the challenges of space exploration.
• Create user interest through an interactive activity.
• Provide up-to-date knowledge on space exploration.

The story consists of an explorer who searches for living beings that tolerate the space environment on different planets. In turn, the explorer will face the risks of microgravity, radiation, isolation, among others.

For each organism found and with the help of experimentation, the abilities of that organism can be added to the synthetic organism carried by the explorer.

You will have 8 planets to visit, the explorer must be careful during the missions because if you forget to collect any ability the microorganism can die, and you can lose one of your three lives.

Once they have gathered all these skills, they will be able to return home with all the knowledge necessary for safe space exploration.

Finally, with all the skills collected, the explorer will create a space superhero, capable of withstanding anything that can be faced outside the planet Earth.

1. How was your experience in Space Apps? What did you learn?

Aide Tellezgirón S. It has been an interesting experience to meet people from different disciplines and to know the complexities of their work. I learned a lot about astrobiology and video games.

Cindy Flores.The platform and dynamics was quite friendly for me, since I could understand the challenge easily, and I was able to enrich my knowledge of databases and work with other people. 

Stephanie Ramírez. I really enjoyed learning about these challenges and also sharing ideas with other people, who have great ideas and can be mixed with mine. I enjoyed organizing and writing the script behind this project.

Salvador Quiroz. I enjoyed every single minute. I was the team’s member who developed all the code and programming of the game and I really loved it. I learned a lot of things that I didn’t know and I could improve all my skills.

Emilio de la Cruz. I loved participating in this event, and I think the only thing that could have made it better is to have participated in person to live a more immersive experience. I was one of the members of the team in charge of music and art, although I knew nothing about music or art (or well, almost nothing), I learned new skills and strengthened my soft skills by working in this team.

1. What was the most challenging part of these 48 hours of work? How did they solve it?

Working with a multidisciplinary team and devising the video game in a way that we all understood. 

I realize that composing music is not as easy as I thought it could be, my ears suffered with all the mess I tried to create at the beginning

1. Anyone you want to thank? Mention it.

Thanks to the entire team for their work and encouragement during the hackathon, and to the Space Apps GDL staff, Daniel Reynoso and Edson Pérez for their support.

Thanks to the respald system of unity too, because without that we would have lost the project at least 5 times.

To my team c:

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