Tardígrados Cósmicos (TaCos)

TACOS

High-Level Project Summary

TACOS is an interactive and educational website service where children and teenagers will learn about how the human body reacts in different environments through space travel, their chances of survival, and what living beings’ features could be useful to complete their mission. In order to encourage them to develop their curiosity about space and biology, we developed a game inside the website, thus they will be able to understand in a fun and interactive way the performance of some biological features and space travels.Briefly, our project will bring awareness to the users about all the challenges that we must be able to overcome as humans to keep advancing civilization forward.

Link to Final Project

https://brave-tree-04b3a6c10.2.azurestaticapps.net/

Link to Project "Demo"

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MC6-YXkbsoQ31UK9iiHATzfTKM023z3i/view?usp=sharing

Detailed Project Description

Development and Methodology

The website is developed as an interactive platform, including great quality content in order to encourage space biology research. While you are entering and starting to know the site, you will find information about the effects human beings perceive in space, we also include a game that allows people to discover these effects in a fun way.

In this Use Case Diagram, we can watch how at the time the user gets into the platform, he has the perspective to make these 2 choices.

Among the multiple benefits, our website offers some stand out such as reliable information taken from the main NASA website presented on a dedicated website. Furthermore, we include a game that through a rewarding experience we will learn about which effects human beings experiment, encouraging users into space biology research.

Our goal is to provide relevant information about all challenges a person must face during space travel and how there are organisms capable of adapting and surviving in these difficult conditions. We want to present this information in a dynamic and fun way within the website and give users or any interested person a game in order to make this learning easier for them.

The project was developed using HTML, CSS, Scratch for the game, and Pixilart for the art design.

Space Agency Data

The gathered information was studied and was presented as main points within our website in an organized way and a good presentation, for this reason, any person will be able to enter and find out what is going on with space biology.

For example, the article called "5 Hazards of Human Spaceflight" helped us to inform develop the Website's main page. And the Genes repository helped us to develop the organisms' features exposed in the game.

We think that not all people are informed about what is happening with the NASA projects and the magnitude of the things that surround our planet and us, humans. For us, this is a really important topic and this is the reason why we want to share it with all the people and be able to show this information in an effective and understandable way. We want to share and transform all the information to facilitate user understanding through the process known as gamification.

Life in space produces profound changes in biology. All organisms on Earth have adapted to perform under conditions of gravity, atmosphere, and cycles of light and darkness that have not changed in millions of years, conditions which are altered aboard spacecraft like the ISS.

Simply put, terrestrial organisms are not designed for life in space.

The goal of the Space Biology Program in the animal biology area is to understand the basic mechanisms that animals use to adapt and/or acclimate to spaceflight and alterations in gravity in general.

Everywhere we go, we take microorganisms with us, whether we want to or not. This is true even aboard the “clean” environment of the ISS.

The effects of spaceflight on the biology of microorganisms and on microbial populations are largely unknown. In addition to posing a risk to astronaut health, bio-corrosive microorganisms that grow on metallic surfaces in spacecraft can damage both equipment and hardware.

Problems that arise due to microbial contamination on long-duration spaceflight missions can only be resolved using tools and resources already present within the vessel.

Effects

With the use of man-made equipment and vehicles, the body is able to tolerate the space environment, which includes elements such as microgravity, radiation, extreme temperatures, low pressure, isolation, and confinement.

● In the first phases of adaptation, homeostasis is altered and intravascular fluid shifts or redistributes from the lower extremities to the upper extremities, thorax, and head region; for this reason, symptoms of “fullness head”, nasal congestion, facial and vocal cord edema are experienced

● For short-duration missions of one month or less, the physiological adaptation that takes place, although important, is relatively mild when compared to the changes that take place during long-duration missions, such as those on the International Space Station (ISS)

● Astronauts lose on average 1% to 2% of their bone mineral density every month. Without regular use and exercise our muscles weaken and deteriorate, a process called atrophy. Studies have shown that astronauts experience up to a 20% loss of muscle mass on space flights lasting five to 11 days.

Space radiation is one of the main health hazards of spaceflight. It is dangerous because it has sufficient energy to change or break DNA molecules, which can damage or kill a cell. This can lead to health problems ranging from acute effects to long-term effects.

Hackathon Journey

How was our experience? What did we learn?

The team managed to develop various skills that allowed them to develop a collaborative solution, learning to draw on various skills to find a point where all the ideas come together.

On the other hand, emphasis is placed on how the team, despite the difficulties encountered throughout the Hackathon, managed to achieve several of the proposed objectives, alluding in turn to the same challenge: adapt to continue and survive.

In just one simple word, our experience was: worth it!

What inspired us to choose this challenge?

We believe that there is a lot of misinformation about everything that is happening about space travel and the new discoveries that have been published over the years, as well as little disclosure to certain sectors. Recently there was much talk about the photos of galaxies, planets, and black holes taken by the James Webb telescope that had much relevance in social networks, but not many people are informed of other discoveries such as biological organisms that have been found over the years. In addition, much of the existing information is usually in the English language so it can be difficult for users to understand due to the technical level they handle.

The development team believes that this information should be of pleasure to people, showing it in a more readable, understandable, and interactive presentation, so we could get the attention of more public or viewers and create a taste about space biology, encouraging children and youth to explore more about this branch.

What was your approach to developing this project?

We designed a web page with the name of our team Cosmic Tardigrades (TaCos) in order to present information obtained from articles published by the official NASA website and give it a special format to be of interest to more public. The page consists of two tabs, the home tab where we show the information we want to highlight within the page, and a section where we will find a game that in a fun way will show information along with animations so that the viewer can spend a pleasant time learning.

How did your team resolve setbacks and challenges?

In the beginning, we had some problems because the process of getting into the use of some software and technologies that we had never handled before, was difficult but not impossible, the use of these tools delayed us a little, but in the end, we chose to use technologies of which we had the knowledge and thus, we were able to increase productivity during the 48 hours of work.

The organization and coordination of time proved to be an obstacle but during the day we organized ourselves in a good way and the whole team collaborated to have good progress during the development and documentation of the project.

Is there anyone we'd like to thank and why?

To our mentor María del Carmen González for giving us excellent feedback and helped us to aim our project in a better direction.

Tardígrados Cósmicos (TaCos)

Guadalajara | Build a Space Biology Superhero