High-Level Project Summary
We have developed a mobile app which attracts users to learn more about NASA's James Webb Space Telescope and Space Astronomy.It mainly consists of 4 stations: (Discovery, Puzzle, Flip Cards, and Image restructure)Our target is to break the ice between students and complex Science projects by making them aware of NASA's JWST and Astronomy in general in a challenging game.Astronomy is a gateway science that inspires students to learn scientific reasoning, but it is hard for Students to either try using or even observing these telescopes, and it is sometimes boring for students to just read about them, so it is important to encourage them to learn more about astronomy sciences.
Link to Final Project
Link to Project "Demo"
Detailed Project Description
Our project is Mobile Application, It is a fun and challenging game that is made in an entertaining way for the user to have fun while gaining knowledge about James Webb Telescope and space.
The game has 4 stations: Discovery, Puzzle, Flip Card, PSF, The game also has score and level system.
Discovery station is the opening station of our game, it allows the user to choose between different telescopes to view the same image of the space and some information about telescope chosen, so that the user can know more about the telescope and the difference between telescopes.
Puzzle station is the next station, Each level up a new photo will be made into interactive and fun puzzle game at which you will get higher score if you finished the game faster. Once the puzzle is solved, an info about the photo is shown to the player and score is gained.
Flip Card station, James Webb Telescope use different instruments to take a photo of the space, At this station we have unflipped cards having the instruments on them, when the user flip the cards correctly, info is shown about the instruments, the score in this section is calculated based on the number of tries taken to flip the cards correctly. The higher score is achieved by the minimum number of tries.
The last station is the Point Spread function, It takes the instruments used in the Flip Card station and provide the available and suitable filters for them to clear an image according to the instruments used and filters used.
As the player level increases, more instruments will be introduced to him in the Flip card station. As the score increases, the player gains coins to buy more filters to achieve better and more clearance of the last station, which is the end goal of the game.
The player can online challenge his friends in the Puzzle or Flip Card Games to gain extra more points.
The goal of we hope to achieve is to aware the students of the importance of James Web telescope and researches done in this field and its importance in our life, in an enjoyable and challenging method.
Tools used: Visual Studio Code, Android Studio, Python(webbPSF), Nodejs, Express, MonjoDB, TypeScript, Flutter, Dart, Adobe Photoshop, Camtasia.
Space Agency Data
NASA, provided the project with a high quality images and information, taken in the space by telescopes such as James Webb and Hubble.
Example of data used from NASA:
1- Image and detailed information taken by James Webb Telescope about Carina Nebula (Cosmic Cliffs), Stephan's Quintet, Southern Ring Nebula and SMACS 0723.
2- Image and information taken by Hubble Telescope about Carina Nebula, Southern Ring Nebula.
European Space Agency, Provided some images used in the project
Example:
1- Galactic wreckage in Stephan's Quintet captured by Hubble telescope.
2- Galaxy IC 5332 captured by James Webb telescope.
Hackathon Journey
We would describe our journey experience here as a one of a kind experience as we have challenged ourselves and tried to make our idea working within almost 24 hours, in these 24 hours everyone in this team has worked as hard as possible in order to make this application come true we have faced a lot of technical problems which we managed to face as a one team we also added more ideas to our application in order to level up the competition challenge and to challenge ourselves even more.
Besides the problem-solving skills, soft skills we gained while interacting with others, expanding our network and team work, we have even gained more knowledge about astronomy and telescopes in a way we have never imagined.
We picked that challenge as James Webb is considered to be the most recent expensive and the most important Astronomical project ever to have ever been built, we are also aware of its huge impact among the humanity in general as through this telescope we can solve more mysteries about the universe. We are aware also that more 90% of students all over the world use mobile applications and internet, so we have decided to take that path and try to make students gain more knowledge about astronomy and telescopes specifically James Webb in a challenging and effective way, I would like to thank you for giving us this opportunity and participating in such a great worldwide global challenge.
References
First Images from the James Webb Telescope
https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-reveals-cosmic-cliffs-glittering-landscape-of-star-birth
https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-sheds-light-on-galaxy-evolution-black-holes
https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-captures-dying-star-s-final-performance-in-fine-detail
https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-delivers-deepest-infrared-image-of-universe-yet/
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/caldwell-74
https://esawebb.org/images/comparisons/potm2209a/
https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2022/09/Webb_s_view_on_spiral_galaxy_IC_5332
Hubble Telescope Images
https://hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/2008/34/2405-Image.html
https://esahubble.org/images/heic0910i/
Python Model (webbPSF)
https://webbpsf.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html
https://www.stsci.edu/jwst/science-planning/proposal-planning-toolbox/psf-simulation-tool
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/52388530181/in/album-72177720301006030/
Tags
#software, #python, #video_game, #game_development, #game_dev, #Telescopes