High-Level Project Summary
NASA Circus is a must-live and unique experience, a 5-Activity and 2-Day worldwide inclusive mechanism for ordinary people interested in science and astronomy, those with visual disabilities, and those with complex or no access to internet services. It contains an exhibition of astrophotography, a masterclass of exoplanets, a masterclass of ways to discover the universe, a workshop for people with visual disabilities where they will feel the universe through their senses, and “Music of the Stars” a collective activity in the night that combines the amaze we think when we see something through our telescope with people teaching about space, and star-related music playing in the background.
Link to Final Project
Link to Project "Demo"
Detailed Project Description
NASA Circus is a must-live and unique experience for everyone, it means we couldn’t make aside people with visual disabilities and people with difficulty, or no access to internet services. We knew it had to be mobile so it was a starting point, our mentor Natalia de la Selva showed us Sebastián Musso’s work for blind people to touch the moon and galaxies and feel our vast universe, this was helpful for us to develop techniques so everyone can learn and feel love for science and astronomy.
We now have a 2-days and 5-Activities circus that contains an exhibition of astrophotography, a masterclass of exoplanets, a masterclass of ways to discover the universe, a workshop for people with visual disabilities where they will feel the universe through their senses and make them feel unmarginalized from society, and “Music of the Stars” a collective activity in the night that combines the amaze we feel every time we see something through our telescope with people teaching about stars, constellations, planets, and moons and, in addition to this, star-related music playing in the background for this to be a unique and stress-relief experience for everyone.
Our main objectives with NASA CIRCUS are:
Fight scientific illiteracy, this is a contemporary phenomenon that makes us feel apathetic about science and divulgation, and it’s costing humankind progress when it comes to technology innovation. This way we can arouse interest in research and combine science with art and senses. This will be followed by outreaching as many people as possible.
But how will all this be done?
We made a chronogram for activities starting January 1st, 2023, with recruitment and investigation, for our second period we have Crowdfunding and Foundations, find equipment and locations and training staff, and finally, we will have our circus done with Marketing Campaigns, Broadcasts, and Public Feedback.
As we know, science is suffering, and we must take part for it to get back to where it must be.
We need financial resources, and we can make crowdfunding and find institutions and foundations such as The World Band, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Annenberg Foundation, Ford Foundation, and Wallace Foundation; all of these foundations are interested in education, and we’d love to see this project become real.
I would like to add that we believe all of this has to be done because we need to wake up interest in science and curiosity in everyone, and we mean everyone, it does not matter where you come from, what color your skin is, if you have a type of disability or what language you speak, everyone is important for science and the biggest inventions come from the smallest places.
Space Agency Data
Of all Space Agencies we only use NASA open data, we chose images and essential articles about science and its relation to art. It inspired us because we realized astroart has a significant presence in NASA and every aspect of space investigation. Hence, it was a basis for the development of our project. It was important for us to have access to this information because it showed us how important visual expressions are and the impact they have on people.
Hackathon Journey
Space Apps was a fantastic experience for us, it really gave us a close-up of the challenges scientist face every day, we learned to work under pressure and we are really thankful for the opportunity to meet amazing people this weekend, such as José Hernández and Natalia de la Selva. The challenge had its complexity, we first thought about something and after speaking to our mentor we decided the best idea for us was to change many things in it. We can say we learn much more than we expected and we are looking forward to participating next year!
References
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Tags
#art #circus #science #curiosity #NASA #foundations #astronomy #teaching