High-Level Project Summary
With HexMission, we’ve designed an innovative digital game that will make astronomic knowledge more accessible to everyone, especially to young people. HexMission presents the player several missions which are related to all those elements that James Webb Telescope can identify (early universe, planets...). The players will recieve a budget, and they'll have to use it to buy the components and pieces necessary to overcome the missions, and they'll also have to answer some questions. HexMission synthesizes information from NASA, which is usually difficult to understand for a lot of people, and makes it easy to understand and learn. It's the best way to get people involved in astronomy.
Link to Final Project
Link to Project "Demo"
Detailed Project Description
HexMission is the best way to make tricky and difficult information about astronomy accessible to everyone through a fun and educational way. HexMission is a digital game which gives the players several missions they'll have to overcome. The players will recieve a James Webb Telescope, which they'll have to customize and improve. Some of these missions could be, for example, identifying an unknown galaxy, new stars, getting pictures of planets we hadn't had a clear view of before... All this in just one game.
The best part is that it won't be boring. We've seriously taken into consideration that a game must be fun and catchy while being educational. This is why we've included elements such as a welcome page, in which Mr. James Webb explains the players what does the game consists of. We also wanted it to be a videogame and not a simulator; this is why players will accumulate all the places and elements they discover (the galaxies, the stars, etc) and they'll be able to compete against other players to be the best astronomer.
HexMission has a "Workshop" section. This is the place where players will be able to buy all the components and improvements for their own James Webb Telescope, which they will need to do the missions. It also has a "Library" section, where players will find all the information needed about which components must be used for each mission.
Although videogames don't have a fixed public (everyone can play them), our focus is young people (from middle school students to 30 year old people aprox). We think this is the best public because youth are the ones that are constantly learning and working at increasing their knowledge.
As said before, the objective is conquiering as many stars/galaxies/etc as possible, in order to be the best astronomer and beat the other players. Schools could organize 'leagues' of HexMission, so that students would be even more motivated and knowledge about JWST would arrive to even more people.
We're sure players would enjoy HexMission, as it combines and interesting topic like astronomy, with the innovation of the new James Webb Telescope, and with the fun and entertainment that a game can generate. It has everything it needs to be the ultimate educational tool to make people aware of the JWST.
Below you'll find some screenshots attached of the game, but we also invite you to see the project and the 30 seconds video to have a better idea on how HexMission works.
We hope you like our game, because if there's something that we can ensure, is that this is the result of a lot of effort and motivation.
Space Agency Data
We've used several information from the NASA website:
JWST's Build It Yourself Simulator: it was one of our main inspirations for HexMissions, as it helped a lot understanding the potential of the James Webb telescope and its possibilities. https://webb.nasa.gov/content/features/educational/buildItYourself/index.html
Key Facts: We used these two websites to understand the goals of the JWST and the main components (instruments) that it uses to take the measurements. These websites inspired us to have the idea of the missions and gave us some information about how the missions should be.
https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/about/faqs/facts.html
https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/content/about/faqs/faq.html
Flickr Albums & Nasa Official Images: We used these official NASA albums for the aesthetic part of the website (images, buttons...). They inspired us to make the game more visual and use better graphic resources.
https://www.flickr.cdom/photos/nasawebbtelescope/albums/72177720300469752/with/52210580092/
https://webb.nasa.gov/content/multimedia/images.html
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/images/index.html
Webb NASA blog: This website was our main resource to understand how do the infrared instruments work. As it also explains a lot about the achievements of the JWST, it was a big inspiration for the missions.
Hackathon Journey
Our Space Apps 2022 experience has been surprising and amazing. We barely knew what we would find in this hackaton, as most of us had never done one before.
First of all, we've learned to work with people we didn't know before. Although most of us already knew before, we've joined other people and worked with perfect coordination and organization. It has been a great learning experience, as we know that in our future we'll have to work with new people. We knew how important it was to be proactive, but in this hackaton we've demonstrated it.
This challenge motivated us because the JWST is one of the most innovative and surprising technological advances. We heard a lot about it, but when we arrived to this hackaton, we realized that the truth is that we didn't have any idea about how it really worked. Astronomy can be interesting for lots of people, but us youth need not only to have this information, but to also understand it. Additionally, creating a game mixed all of our skills, but mainly creativity and technology.
Our main challenge was having a good idea that could be both educational and entertaining. The best of it was that the idea came out from all our points of view: we mixed the ideas of the six members of the team and made one great idea. Doing the UI/UX interface of the app wasn't easy, but with investigation and hard work, we did a job we're very proud of.
I thank that all of us have to thank the others. The six members to the six members. It has been a group where everyone has worked hard and put passion.
References
James Webb, la máquina del tiempo de la primera luz del cosmos. (s. f.). Newtral. https://www.newtral.es/especiales/telescopio-james-webb/
López, J. C. (30 de enero de 2021). El telescopio espacial James Webb, explicado: por qué se ha retrasado tanto y qué esperamos conseguir con un instrumento tan avanzado. Xataka - Tecnología y gadgets, móviles, informática, electrónica. https://www.xataka.com/espacio/telescopio-espacial-james-webb-explicado-que-se-ha-retrasado-que-esperamos-conseguir-instrumento-avanzado
Colaboradores de los proyectos Wikimedia. (2 de marzo de 2006). Telescopio espacial James Webb - Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre. Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre. https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescopio_espacial_James_Webb
¿Quién fue James Webb? El nombre detrás del telescopio espacial. (s. f.). Independent Español. https://www.independentespanol.com/tecnologia/james-webb-nasa-telescopio-espacial-b2174635.html
Build it yourself! Game webb telescope/nasa. (s. f.). Webb Space Telescope GSFC/NASA. https://webb.nasa.gov/content/features/educational/buildItYourself/index.html
Tags
#software, #videogame, #fun, #design, #jameswebb, #art, #JwstArt