MIMBI

Asunción | Turning STEM into STEAM

Awards & Nominations

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

Global Winner
Best Storytelling

The solution that most creatively communicates the potential of open data through the art of storytelling.

The MIMBI Project

High-Level Project Summary

With MIMBI ("spark" in guarani), I try to introduce my community to the first Paraguayan satellite through literature, visual, musical, and public arts, in a unique interactive storytelling adventure for all ages. I've placed flyers in some local business, these have AI generated art about the satellite and a QR code that led to a web app where you can play the story with custom-made touches of the Paraguayan culture like woven textures, rhymes, music, and painting styles. In the first 4 hours over 300 people visited the website. Thus, I hope people will get to know the importance of this scientific milestone in our country, that helped hundreds of families to prevent the Chagas disease.

Link to Final Project

https://lucianosantiviago.github.io/MIMBI_eng/

Link to Project "Demo"

https://youtu.be/4LA4GQffN88

Detailed Project Description

Art! I love art.

I love art, entertainment, storytelling, AND SCIENCE! These are topics I was introduced to when I was a child. Storytelling made me love science, and I want to inspire others to love science trough storytelling, like me.

Science is not something everyone consider fun. Therefore, in order to spark the curiosity of the general public around scientific projects, the Mimbi Project is born (Mimbi means “spark” in guarani, a native and second official language of Paraguay).

To narrow down the scope of the project, I chose to tell the story of the GuaraniSat-1, the first Paraguayan satellite, designed by engineers of the Paraguayan Space Agency. It is a project I consider it didn’t have the massive acceptance it should have had when it was announced. It also had some backlash from some people that didn’t understand well the importance and benefits of that the satellite would bring, generating discussions and controversy in the social media.

This is why we must find a way to teach about the satellite in a simple, creative and fun way, that everyone can understand.

MIMBI is a web application created on the Construct 3 platform and hosted on Github Pages. In there, the user has an interactive learning experience about the GuaraniSat-1 using the gamification technique.

People can access the website in two ways: through QR codes in flyers with AI art placed in several local business in my town, and through social media where dozens of friends are sharing the web address.

Literature

Storytelling is my passion, and this case was special. I transformed tons of knowledge in a simple and fun game. Guarani people had a lot of legends to explain the nature, and I wanted to transmit the knowledge about GuaraniSat-1 inspired in those legends, but with our own way to tell stories.

If you pay attention, the narration of the story is made with rhymes. It was a very difficult creative process because I had to write and compile two versions of the app: one in English (to upload it here) and one in Spanish (to be effective and have a real impact in my community). At the same time, both had to have different words to rhyme, but communicate the same idea for the story coherent.

Visual Art

The flyers at the local business and stores play an essential role, it gives the project that community impact and involvement I’m looking for. These have different designs and phrases to catch the audience and spark their curiosity, both in Spanish and Guarani language. These are some examples.

You don't need to scan the QR code, it takes you to the Spanish version of the app (it was the only way it would be effective in my community). For the OFFICIAL English version, see the LINK TO FINAL PROJECT section.

The images in the flyers and the backgrounds in the application itself were created by the AI Dream, by WOMBO. With this tool, I could upload and image of the GuaraniSat-1 and input some text like “galaxy, stars, sky, Paraguay art, Paraguayan town, fabric”, and get a beautiful work of art. I had to make dozens of iterations for each background, to match the style of abstract Paraguayan painting I was looking for.

Other visual resources were obtained from free sources, but always re-edited to ensure the visual harmony all along the story, including adding a woven fabric texture to the designs.

Musical Art

Both the background music and the sound effects were custom-made by myself. The classic wood guitar is a traditional instrument in Paraguay; therefore, it could not be missing in a Paraguayan-themed game. Yes, that’s my brother’s guitar for the main theme of Mimbi…

And yes, that’s me saying “pop” for the pressed button sound effect.

I processed the raw recordings with Audacity, reduced the noise, added reverb and other effects, and finally added all the music and effects to the application.

The platform used to create the experience was Construct 3. The game, interactive story, or whatever you call it, consists of 3 chapters and an epilogue illustrating the journey to create of the first Paraguayan satellite, the GuaraniSat-1.

In every chapter there are interactive elements that aim to engage the player with the story, such as drag and drop objects from one side of the screen to another, launching a rocket, etc.

The development environment is very easy to use, you don’t need to know any programming language more than some logic statements. Source code is available in the following link: https://github.com/lucianosantiviago/MIMBI_eng and the Spanish version of the source code is also available at my Github profile.

I asked permission to put the flyers at 6 places: a boutique, a toy store, a supermarket, a hardware store, a tourism center, and an ice cream shop. This was done on Sunday around noon. Then I also shared these images on my social media and with friends by text-messaging apps.

I didn’t expect it to be the success it was. By 4 pm, more 300 people have already played the game. Feedback was very positive, many people texted me saying that they didn’t know about the GuaraniSat-1, or that we even had a national Space Agency. In this way, it is proven that is an effective way to solve the presented problem.

Mimbi is a very scalable project. The same type of interactive experience mixed with public art interventions can be used to promote more scientific knowledge to the general public in a easy but entertaining way. In the end, there is no other purpose apart from showcase the wonders of science to our communities and inspire the younger ones, to ignite their curiosity about the Paraguayan Space Agency through art and storytelling, just like I was attracted to science when I was a child.

Space Agency Data

The main trunk of the story has been made with the information available in "An Overview of the BIRDS-4 Satellite Project and the First Satellite of Paraguay", the webpage of the Paraguayan Space Agency and a NASA publication about the project.

Additional information was gathered from news articles and interviews with the engineers that designed the GuaraniSat-1, the specific websites are provided in the references section.

After the very important job of managing and processing and this information creatively, science became a rhyming story so simple that could be understandable for everyone yet detailed enough to expand the knowledge of the players a little more.

Some facts were emphasized and repeated times intentionally, for example, that the GuaraniSat-1 is the first Paraguayan satellite, that Paraguayan engineers designed it, and that it helped hundreds of families during a research project of tracking the vector insect of the Chagas disease. This was because beyond all the scientific data gathered and available to show, the first step to understand the importance of this project is to value human side of it, the side all readers will be related to and feel good about. Once you reached the curiosity of the reader, they will keep investigating about the other details.

Hackathon Journey

If I had to describe my Space Apps experience in two words, they would be "busy" and "rewarding"! Yes, very opposite words, but I think that's the beauty of this experience. I slept only 4 hours last night! Not because I was working on the project, but because I was too excited to sleep.

What did I learn? Well, I learned how to make a game! I didn't know how to use the Construct platform before Saturday, I'm a very quick learner and I'm happy with the results, although I wish I had seen a tutorial at least a week before...

This was also my first time using Github, I created my account for this occasion. Basically, I learned how to make the entire project!

I really like STEAM, when I saw the challenge that was my first, undeniable choice. I love storytelling and I also love science. I really want the general public to also be curious about the science made in our country, hence my story about the GuaraniSat-1.

Not having a team to work with was tough, there were last-minute changes that resulted in that. Hence, time was also a very big challenge, my ambitions were too big for only two days, but I made it! Another big challenge was to write two versions of the story, in Spanish and English.

I would really like to thank to all the local business owners that allowed me to place the flyers of the project in their doors and windows, they were very kind and showed a friendly interest in it. Also, thanks to all the friends that helped shared the flyers in the social media. The MIMBI's community impact wouldn't have been possible without all of you!

References

Info and data

Images

NASA

Freepik.com

Tools

  • Construct 3
  • Audacity
  • Adobe Photoshop CC
  • Github
  • Dream by WOMBO
  • DaVinci Resolve (for demo video)
  • Adobe Express QR Code Generator

Music (for demo video)

Tags

#games #interactive #art #music #painting #culture #community #Paraguay #satellite #GuaraniSat-1

Turning STEM into STEAM

A goal of open science is to make scientific information available to all, and original and innovative approaches can be helpful to effectively communicate scientific information to people with different cultural, socioeconomic, and ethnic backgrounds. Your challenge is to develop a creative method that uses the arts to share and explain the design, process, and/or scientific results from a NASA or partner space agency research project to your audience—i.e., develop an approach that combines science, technology, engineering, the arts, and math (STEAM).