High-Level Project Summary
For our project we have created an interactive game where uploaded images, that were taken from the James Webb Space telescope are zoomed in, at different areas, revealing details about both the telescope and image itself. The user can choose from points which are placed on the high resolution image to show information about the option selected. The game will aim to educate the user, through a quiz based format, about the vast universe while simultaneously highlighting one of the greatest technological advancements of the century (JWST). It makes the user compete with themselves by trying to improve their score through memorizing and learning more information by completing more levels.
Link to Final Project
Link to Project "Demo"
Detailed Project Description
Our project is a game where you are presented with a set of levels. These levels consist of an image from JWST, and a zoom point(s). The player can interact with this zoom point(s) and learn information about that region of the image, which represents just one small fraction of our universe. Once the player has gone through the information, they can take a miniature quiz that will test their knowledge of the information presented in this section. After this is completed, if the player gains enough points they proceed to the next level, where they are presented with new images and information. We decided to use the game engine Unity, and our language of choice was C# since we have the most experience with it. Considering that our intended audience are students around our age, ranging from middle school to high school, our goal was to make the game engaging and exciting, in order to retain their attention as much as possible. Once they are finished with all the levels, their total score will be shown, allowing them to compete with friends or test their knowledge and see if they can manage to get a perfect score. This way entertainment and education are combined in such a way that learning about the JWST becomes fun. We hope that our game, with some extra development will assist us in educating the newer generation on the wonders of space research, and interest them in pursuing this as a future career.
Space Agency Data
One of our main sources for data was nasa, from nasa.gov. It assisted us in helping us understand the inner workings and goals of the JWST, as well as the current accomplishments it has made. It was extremely motivating, because we were yearning to learn more, and our interest grew throughout the weekend about the subject. We collected a variety of images, that were crucial for our project since the main game revolves around images of the galaxies and nebulas that the JWST observed.
Hackathon Journey
We had two reasons for our choice in this challenge, the first being the great interest we had for the images that were recently released from the JWST, which we accessed through social media, and the second being our passion for coding games. Our final decision was also decided based on how efficiently we could split the workload across all of our members, so that everybody was working to the best of their potential. Our overall timeline for the project was quite complex, the initial few hours were spent thinking about the foosteps that we would need to accomplish in order to produce a reliable final product. We then progressed to researching the capabilities and accomplishments of the telescope, as well as the future missions that it plans to embark on. To finalize, we compiled everything together to make the project as close to finished as we could under the limited time frame. Everybody on our team has diverse talents, some members were working on the coding for the game and writing the scripts for the questions, while others comprised all the necessary data and research that would be crucial for our progress. One of our most impressive aspects was our teamwork and communication throughout the project. we were able to relay ideas and split the work out between us very efficiently. A very important quality that we learned was that we could rely on each other for assistance; this aided us in saving a lot of time, which was necessary considering how short of a time-frame we were given. Our progress at times was quite frustrating, but nevertheless we continued at a steady pace. We would like to thank every individual member of our team, as well as our mentors that helped us push ourselves that extra mile further. We would also like to thank Nasa space apps for providing us with the resources necessary for us to successfully create our website and comprise projections of the images we used to make our game
References
https://nasasearch.nasa.gov/search/images?affiliate=nasa&query=carina+nebula
https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/neptune-shows-off-its-rings-in-near-infrared-light
https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/exoplanet-catalog/5152/wasp-96-b/
https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-reveals-steamy-atmosphere-of-distant-planet-in-detail
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2022/new-webb-image-captures-clearest-view-of-neptune-s-rings-in-decades
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/multimedia/ero/ero_stephan_quintet.html
https://visibledark.ca/ngc-3372-the-eta-carina-nebula-in-ha-o3/
https://www.sci.news/astronomy/webbs-first-full-color-images-10991.html
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-delivers-deepest-infrared-image-of-universe-yet
https://www.flickr.com/photos/
https://www.northropgrumman.com/space/why-the-webb-spacecraft-bus-is-in-a-leaque-of-its-own/
https://webb.nasa.gov/content/observatory/sunshield.html
https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/science/milestone-james-webb-space-telescope-secondary-mirror-7709222/
https://spaceflightnow.com/2022/01/07/first-wing-of-webb-telescopes-primary-mirror-folds-into-place/
https://www.aura-astronomy.org/blog/2021/12/30/day-5-webbs-aft-momentum-flap-and-sunshield-covers-deployed/
Tags
#jameswebbspacetelescope #coding #galaxies #space #research #educational