High-Level Project Summary
We developed an idea for an interactive game through which players assemble the pieces of a puzzle to reveal JWST photos, while learning more!The game solves the challenge by engaging players with questions about the JWST capabilities and current discoveries. Additionally, as the game is completed JWST photos of Nebulae and more, are the final result of a game series.It is important because it will expose players to the images JWST is collecting; it will build players' knowledge of how the JWST operates; it will familiarize players with unfamiliar vocabulary and data associated with the JWST; it aspires to generate more interest in JWST and astrophysics as a career path and hobby.
Link to Final Project
Link to Project "Demo"
Detailed Project Description
The project: a JWST game app with puzzles.
What it does: the game engages players with the task of assembling puzzles. Once completed the puzzle reveals JWST images as captured by the telescope in real life.
To get a puzzle piece the player must answer a question. The questions are based on JWST facts and capabilities and vary in difficulty.
In the opening of the app the player will see the menu where they can choose to view the leaderboard, categories, and choose the level of difficulty.
Once they begin the screen will open a puzzle with the number of pieces the player selected. The pieces will scatter. Then the player will be prompted to answer a question. If they don't know the answer or prefer to try to get a puzzle piece in another way they can click the image icon, where they will be shown a magnified part of a larger image. If they accurately select the larger image from which the magnified version came from, they will get the puzzle piece and it will go into the frame. If they are unsure of either of these answers they can choose to fit a puzzle piece into the frame by the shape alone. To choose this option they click on the puzzle shape icon.
The player can (For Example)
1- answer the question with text. Question: What does JWST mean? Answer: James Webb Space Telescope
2- choose to peek at a magnified image of the puzzle piece and determine what the larger piece may be by selecting one of a set multiple choice answers, which are the larger image, if accurately identified then the piece just flies into the frame.
3- try to put the puzzle piece into the larger puzzle frame by the shape of the puzzle only. If the player does not know the text answer and isn't sure of the image, they can try to fit the piece in by recognizing the shape of the piece in the larger puzzle, but they will not see any part of the image, only the outline of the puzzle shapes. If they get it into the correct space, the answer to the question will be revealed as they place it.
As puzzles are completed, the levels of difficulty automatically increase. However, a player may select their level of difficulty at the beginning, they are not required to continue up the levels. They may opt to collect badges or not.
Players who choose to engage competitively can follow the leader board and try to outperform other JWST puzzlers.We are still generating ideas about how points may be accumulated and badges or prizes awarded for successful completion.
Maybe the quantity of points you get can depend on which way you get the piece. If you choose to answer the question you get the most. If you choose to guess the image, you ear slightly less, and if you choose to solve by the puzzle piece, you earn the least.
The puzzles also come with a variety of puzzle piece amounts to add variations in the levels of difficulty. The question levels can come in 3 categories: newbie, enthusiast, and expert. The categories can include but not be limited to: exoplanets, nebulae, and star clusters.
The game has many benefits, primarily it will increase interest in the JWST mission. Players will be amazed and awed from incredible facts and figures that will continue to pour in from the observatory and used as puzzles for this game app. The images will attract attention and likely lead to deeper inquiries about the beautiful sights the images reveal. The game will promote replaying as players will have a ways to be challenged and find success; they will be rewarded for their return playing with increasing challenges; they will be adding valuable information to their mental banks in important fields of that study, which may inspire and lead to lifelong pursuits in science. It is our goal to integrate more awareness and inspire more interest about the JWST mission and our knowledge of the expanding universe.
Space Agency Data
Various photographs and trivia were obtained from the Webb Telescope Images provided to us from both the WISE and the Webb Photo Gallery, courtesy of NASA, CSA, and Goddard Space Flight Center.
https://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/satellites/jwst/
https://webb.nasa.gov/content/multimedia/images.html
https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/
Webb’s NIRISS Ready to See Cosmos in Over 2,000 Infrared Colors
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/52184086358/in/album-72177720296737701/
James Webb Space Telescope Fact Sheet
https://webb.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunch/assets/documents/WebbFactSheet.pdf
Webb’s Mid-Infrared Spectroscopy Will Reveal Molecules, Elements
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/52184594070/in/album-72177720296737701/
https://nasadatanauts.github.io/alexbelloni/datastory.html
The above open data sources from NASA and CSA ,we used in our project, helped us to generate trivia questions and provide visual choices for answers and puzzle solutions.
We used images for puzzle solutions and answers. Using these tools inspired us to learn more, as we hope our app game will do for others.
Hackathon Journey
My Space Apps has experience has been extremely valuable. I think the most important thing the I learned, and I believe the team agrees, is the power of people to get together and get things done. When this team started I knew only my husband, but by the middle or the first morning, we had a team of 3 active members, growing to 5 over day 1, spanning 4 continents, combining a diverse set of skills and ages. We had 2 important things in common: our humanity and our interest in astrophysics.
Our team may have grown unconventionally, as we didn't decide the challenge as a group. We started with the a couple looking to learn more about JWST and all she hoped to achieve. Through a bit of brainstorming the idea for a game app was brought into existence and then, like a eureka moment, the puzzle and trivia idea came to light. Feeling confident that the idea had merit this coupe started the search for a team. Not finding one, we created one, and quickly started our outreach. We started messaging anyone with JWST in their chat thread and sharing our idea, which happened to be very well received, fortunately by people with the skills we needed to bring the idea to life. It could be said that the JWST and puzzle idea is what inspired the team to form.
Our approach unfolded as naturally as the gathering of the members. As we took this main idea and articulated how it might look, people started offering ideas to develop it, using their own strengths. Then, we would share our progress, offer feedback and tweak our contributions, until we ended up with something we could materialize and explain visually, using our combined skills. The process was a true testament to how collaboration . communication, thinking critically, creating and perseverance can take you a very long way in generating solutions that can be shared around the world.
There weren't really any "setbacks" to write about. Whenever a decision needed to made, the group was invited to collaborate and we moved forward one step at a time. everyone contributed using their strengths and talents and when we came across ideas we didn't have the skill set for, we worked around it and found another way to express what we wanted.
here may have been one perceived challenge, which was when a non-member offering to help, joined our chat. The conversation started to go off focus from our goals and wasn't contributing to us achieving our goal. We handled it quite simply by choosing to disengage from the dialogue and requested to our team members to just refocus on our goals and move forward, to which we all agreed and got back to our collaboration.
I would like to thank the team for being present, being honest, and doing their best. I also want to thank the organizers of this event and NASA for providing the opportunity for global strangers to come together with a common interest and innovative ideas that are valuable and valued, and giving us the experience of being a part of a global team sharing our common interest to discover more about the universe.
References
Resources other than the open data from Naa and CSA listed above in answered above in space app data, used to generate questions:
James Webb Space Telescope has enough fuel for way more than 10 years of science
https://www.space.com/james-webb-space-telescope-fuel-lifetime
The Telescope that will Change Astronomy
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/telescope-will-change-astronomy-180978681/
github
Fliker
https://nasadatanauts.github.io/alexbelloni/datastory.html
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uKKY-ffWZSWVCt3bBa_FxsWH-SKsfMvsujEItLchick/edit?usp=sharing Q and A for trivia
im-a-puzzle.com/onlinepuzzlegnerator
PPT
Google Meet
Google Docs
Gmail
Tags
#JWST #puzzle #nebulae #exoplanets #universe