High-Level Project Summary
Looking (glass) to the past is a game aimed at children and youth audiences, which seeks to show the importance and capacity of the James Webb space telescope, and also other telescopes and studies done throughout history. telescopes and studies done throughout history. Different game objective is used for what your photos are chosen, and who your photos were used for. All this, starting from the beginning, with Galileo's observation technology that was perfected by Galileo. The objective is to show the importance of understanding the past, both of the universe and of the history of astronomy and studies of the sky.
Link to Final Project
Link to Project "Demo"
Detailed Project Description
We chose challenge "Learning Through the Looking Glass" because we wanted to not only show the capability and relevance of the James Webb space telescope, but also the importance of other telescopes through history, serving as a scientific lever in his invention and these days to find out about the origin of the universe.
There is a taboo about the universe and space explorations, that are very difficult and its knowledge is inaccessible. The goal of the game is to prove that some knowledge about telescopes can be explained in a simple, dynamic and fun way.
People will gain a fun source about an unconventional knowledge, easy enough for beginners to learn and practice several times, which is a great opportunity to spread awareness.
The user will see on the screen of their mobile device a captured image of a telescope, to try to deduce which telescope generated that image, with two on-screen answer options, while there is a stopwatch that challenges the player to choose an answer before time runs out. As soon as the time is up, the user chooses a response and the game reveals the correct answer, comparing the options. At each stage, the player gets one of the 18 pieces of James Webb’s reflector mirror, to assemble them at the end of the game.
Our solution uses images from different telescopes to make the comparison between them interactively with the user. At the application text information about how images are generated and how the technology is applied can be found.
Our idea is to change the perception of people regarding space telescopes, especially amongst young people and children, making information accessible through an entertaining quiz.
Our game is a very complete application, containing hundreds of images captured by several telescopes of different agencies. To level up, the player needs a minimum score by answering the most correct answers on time. In every level the challenge is increased, also unlocking a hexagon of James Webb's reflecting mirror.
Our solution can democratize the access to information that usually requires a long research, and it’s believed that approachable knowledge it’s the way to increase exploration and results.
Space Agency Data
We use the satellite images provided by NASA to be able to compare them and show the user how the captures have evolved and explain their technologies.
Hackathon Journey
The group has known each other since high school, where we started a technical course together and started talking. As we learned more programming languages and progressed through the course, we found the idea of making a game for the first time valid.
When we read the challenges and saw the game, we realized the amount of windows it offered in our favor, we considered it possible to implement, better prototyping and many advantages for children/youth, since most of us coming from public schools do not had so much access to this type of content.
References
Tags
#jwst, #telescope, #development, #game, #kids, #learning