High-Level Project Summary
We have a project based on the James Webb Telescope. We are looking to make our audience comprehend how it works, why do we need it and have fun at the same time. First of all, we had no game developers, so it was a harsh road to take, but the rewards at the end of it are so charming that we had to take the risks of failing. Teaching and spreading knowledge are our sole purpose, the ways society can benefit from having intellectually advanced people can help in so many ways we can’t even see the ends. Nowadays, space is an unspoken topic between the “normal” people, even though it’s the future of mankind. Games, are what attract the youth the most, so by creating such a learning game and mak
Link to Final Project
Link to Project "Demo"
Detailed Project Description
WELCOME TO THE TEAM OF SCIENCE AND OPERATIONS, THE FORCE OF SCIENCE.
Our game is simple, we have a space station that got annihilated by an unexpected meteorite, and so we had to send a man named James to get the files that would have been lost otherwise. When getting there, the NASA director contacts him and says he needs to go through the blueprint of the telescope, so that he fixes a fatal error in the system. We cover every step of the fixing process and that’s our way of transmitting the information to our players.
The why:
Our team is made up of teachers and students, we want to learn as much as possible and share the knowledge we know so that it benefits the next generations. That’s why we chose this challenge because it portrays our objectives. Space is a deeply interesting subject, but few people are actually knowledgeable about it. With the popularity of games and the rising dependency on electronic devices, fewer and fewer children put in the time and effort to learn other than in school. For this reason, we decided to deliver the information in the form of a game through a popular game called Roblox.
The journey:
By choosing a video game-based challenge, we voluntarily depended on game developers to make our ideas a reality, but sadly our only game dev left us empty-handed. We modified our strategy to adapt to this loss, and we decided to use a game called Roblox. One of the hardest things we faced was learning coding from scratch to be able to make the game. Another hardship we faced was making complicated information, simple for 8 years old to understand.
The idea:
An asteroid crashed into a space station, and the NASA team sent an astronaut to get some files that would have been lost forever, when he arrives there, they contacted him and told him that a fatal system error occurred in the James Webb space telescope, so he had to go through the blueprint of the telescope, to be able to fix it, and the game focuses mostly on this part. We can show the way that the James Webb space telescope work and explain its functions by going through what the astronaut learned while fixing the Telescope.
Our future:
The most urgent thing would be to add game developers to our team. That will let us make the game downloadable on google play and the app store, hopefully leading it to be one of the top educational games. But meanwhile, we’re going TO broaden the topics: we can talk about other telescopes and explain fundamental subjects of astronomy like the birth of stars and black holes. We can then become a company that focuses on making educational games of very high quality and in consequence pique the interest of the educational system and integrate our games in schools to influence the ways kids learn. We are confident that we will never stop seeking this project’s success because it will change the whole world, bring a new era of learning and raise geniuses.
Space Agency Data
James Webb Space Telescope (nasa.gov)
By reading these documents, we were able to understand the topic and way better than before. Plus, the visualization of our game became much clearer. And the process of gaining information helped us create the
Hackathon Journey
It was a tiresome yet fun journey to have. We started a game-based challenge because we had a game developer on our team, but suddenly he left us with a heavy burden on our shoulders. We had to start learning basic coding skills, which was rushed and very hard. Communicating with each other in the correct way to make progress was radically difficult as well. We split into two teams: the team responsible for the coding and game development, and the other team was responsible for putting the information into words and order. Suddenly one day, the member responsible for the PowerPoint stopped answering, we started getting too close to the deadline, and in the blink of an eye, it happened. It was utter chaos; it was past the deadline, and we did not submit it. We were so afraid of being kicked out of the hackathon, but turns out she was sick and for two days she couldn't get out of bed. But at the end of the day, we made it successfully to the hackathon. Not all the team members were able to come to the university (USEK) but still tried to help as much as possible.
References
Roblox references:
how to make a cinematic animation
easy ways to make cutscenes on Roblox
info references:
All info that we were able to search for in order to add them to our game
Tags
#gaming, #educational, #JWST.