High-Level Project Summary
The development and launch of the James Webb Telescope has been possibly the biggest milestone in recent years. The functions it can perform and the data it collects are, in general, difficult to understand for people without technical or scientific knowledge and for this reason scientific dissemination and the presentation of said data in a more simplified and dynamic way are of great importance.The dissemination of these new advances would also make it possible to bring science, technology, engineering and mathematics closer to children and adolescents.
Link to Final Project
Link to Project "Demo"
Detailed Project Description
Webb Space Adventures is a video game for children, adolescents and the general public that aims to interactively disseminate the discoveries and images made by the James Webb telescope. It presents a journey from the launch of the telescope from its placement in orbit to its work in space research.
The player must find the telescope targets in deep space, point the telescope at the point and obtain the data or images. With the information, a description of the image will also be obtained so that the user learns more about the universe.
In the development of the game, Unity was used as the graphic engine, Blender for the assembly of the 3d models and JetBrains Rider for programming in the C# language. The Windows Movie Maker video editor was also used.
Space Agency Data
Most of the images from the James Webb telescope and infographics made by NASA with data obtained were used, which are the points to look for. The dissemination of this information was the main motivation for which this project was carried out.
Hackathon Journey
Interest in this challenge arose from our experience interacting with young adolescents and their access to information. Since they do not usually search, our objective is that through the video game they learn with official data the operation of the James Webb from takeoff to the investigation it carries out. We also have a team with a wide variety of skills and professions, including programming, art, psychology and teaching.
References
- Unity Project - https://github.com/lauranvelazquez/Webb-Space-Adventures
- James Web Launch - Nasa en Español - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlDQCmwGM5g
- NASA's James Webb Space Telescope Images- Flickr - https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/albums
Tags
·#JamesWebb, #astronomy, #videogame, #STEM