Awards & Nominations
The Webbuilders has received the following awards and nominations. Way to go!
Global Nominee
JWST Webbuilder
High-Level Project Summary
In the JWST Webbuilder, players are tasked with assembling the five main pieces of the JWST to form a functional telescope and matching images taken by the JWST with their names. Throughout the game experience, players can learn about different aspects of the telescope and the images taken by the JWST. Our project is important because it provides a fun and interactive way to teach kids about the JWST and its capabilities. Unlike other forms of learning like reading or watching, our video game provides an engaging hands-on experience that is both fun and educational to the learner.
Link to Final Project
Link to Project "Demo"
Detailed Project Description
Our project, the JWST Webbuilder, teaches children about the different parts of the JWST and its capabilities in two sections:
- We split the telescope by function into five main parts. The first part of our game is a drag-and-drop game where you have to assemble the JWST given the five parts. As the players click on different pieces of the telescope, an info box at the bottom will display information about the part. After the pieces of the telescope are assembled, a recording of the launching of the JWST is played.
- Then, the second part of our game is a mix-and-match section where you have to match an image with its name. When this section is completed, players can hover over each image and an information box will pop up, showing information about each image.
In the future, we will split the telescope into more parts to create different difficulty levels for the puzzle. We will also include more telescopes, not just the JWST. Furthermore, we will expand our image collection to automatically upload new images from the NASA website and to be able to randomize which images are shown.
Our entire project was developed using the Playcanvas Game Engine. It utilizes JavaScript and Playcanvas built-in assets to make the JWST parts draggable. The images and text objects were also created using Playcanvas. We also used Blender to separate different parts of the JWST model.
Space Agency Data
For our project, we mainly used data from NASA.
For our Space Agency information sources, we used:
- NASA’s James Webb Telescope website to learn information about the different cameras and equipment of the JWST.
- NASA’s images and descriptions to write the information seen in the first and second sections of our game.
- NASA technical reports on the JWST to understand more about the telescope and write a complete summary of each telescope part
Hackathon Journey
Our Space Apps experience was amazing. We had a fun time learning from our teammates and working with them, and we also loved meeting new people in person at the NASA Ames Research Center. The staff was very friendly, and we had a great time meeting and learning from the host, David.
When we first learned about the JWST, we were awestruck at its capabilities and what it could do. JWST could take images in much higher detail than before, and it was specifically optimized to capture light from the beginning of the universe. We've always thought that we've already explored Earth's land and oceans a lot, but the one region that is still very unknown to us is space. When we heard that JWST was being launched, we were very excited to share our passion with other people around the world to promote space exploration.
During the development of our project, we learned many useful 3D web design techniques used in PlayCanvas, such as using 2D screens. To develop this project, we started out by brainstorming different games that we could create. We then created the project using PlayCanvas, and we polished up our project in the end. Some setbacks and challenges that we faced are that we couldn’t figure out how to do drag and drop, and some elements remained stationary even after we animated them.
We’d like to thank Raymond’s dad who helped us when we were stuck on the project.
References
- Images and descriptions: https://webbtelescope.org/resource-gallery/images.
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViXoWdbF-Ys (Credit: Ariadnespace/NASA)
- JWST Model: https://blendermarket.com/products/james-webb-space-telescope.
- Information: https://www.stsci.edu/jwst/instrumentation/instruments, https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/observatory/instruments/miri.html, https://webb.nasa.gov/content/observatory/sunshield.html, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacecraft_bus_(James_Webb_Space_Telescope), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope, https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13208, https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2022/07/13/solar-panels-power-the-james-webb-telescope/, https://webb.nasa.gov/content/observatory/ote/mirrors/index.html, https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/48799770203
- PlayCanvas Source License: https://github.com/playcanvas/engine/blob/main/LICENSE
Tags
#JWST #Software #Game #Puzzle #Space