Twinkle Twinkle Little Star challenge (Star Explorer game)

High-Level Project Summary

We created a learning app (Star Explorer game) that helps young learners better understand the variety stars above them. It helps with avoiding all the inconvenience of searching through countless databases and stumbling upon untrusted sources by educating users in a fun and engaging manner.

Detailed Project Description

The program navigates a spaceship through different extraterrestrial objects to display information about the object picked by the user. The program works on by selecting the object you want to learn about, redirecting you to the specific object, and play an animation visualizing how it would look in real life. It decreases the time required for research to learn about the variety of different star types found across the universe. The program gives the user a sense of adventure to get them excited about finding out more about the stars and since it is available to use on any device, it is universally applicable to teach in any setting. We hope to achieve flawless execution within the program, availability on the mobile app store, and to make the application more engaging. We used Construct 3, Photoshop and Krita to design the interface, details, and write up the data.

Space Agency Data

Parameter  SymbolAlpha LeonisReference

Right ascensionα10h 09m 33.1sSIMBAD*

Declinationδ15° north declinationSIMBAD*

Visual magnitudem_v3.08(ESA, 1997)

Johnson color index (B-V)0.16 ± 0.1(ESA, 1997)

Parallaxπ41.13 ± 0.35(Van Leeuwen, 2007b)


Parameter

  Symbol

Alpha Aquarii

Reference

Right ascension

22h 06m 0s

SIMBAD*

Declination

-00° 12' 30.5

SIMBAD*

Visual magnitude

3.09

(ESA, 1997)

Johnson color index

(B-V)

0.96 ± 0.1

(ESA, 1997)

Parallax

π

6.23 ± 0.19

(Van Leeuwen, 2007b)


Parameter

  Symbol

Aries Cluster

Reference

Right ascension

02h 22m 12.3s

SIMBAD*

Declination

+23 32’ 21.1”

SIMBAD*

Visual magnitude

2.17

(ESA, 1997)

Johnson color index

(B-V)

1.16 ± 0.1

(ESA, 1997)

Hackathon Journey

The experience was an amazing, unforgettable opportunity and a wonderful learning experience.

We learnt how to manage our time management, work as a team. collect data from Nasa and use it to build and design a game, in addition to presenting in front of an audience.

References

  • References we used to collect the data:

Al-Wardat, M.A., 2018. Astrophysics, Part I: Stars, 1st ed. Modern Book’s World, Irbid- Jordan. 

Astrophysics data system. NASA/ADS. (n.d.). Retrieved, 2022, from https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/ 

ESA, 1997. The Hipparcos and Tycho Catalogues (ESA).

Gray, D.F., 2005. The observation and analysis of stellar photospheres. Cambridge University Press.

Lang, K.R., 1992. Astrophysical Data I. Planets and Stars.

SIMBAD Astronomical Database - CDS (Strasbourg) [WWW Document], 2021. URL http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/ (accessed 5.29.21).

Van Leeuwen, F., 2007b. Validation of the new Hipparcos reduction. Astron. Astrophys. 474, 653–664.


  • References we used to build and design the game:

www.space.com

www.Stellarium-web.org

Google tools

Microsoft PowerPoint

Britannica online encyclopedia 

www.nasa.gov

www.constellation-guide.com

Krita Software

Construct 3 

Tags

#stars #space #astronomy #nasa #challenge #game #variable_star #binary_star #black_hole #cepheid_star #SpaceAppsChallenge