Astromutatio

Ile Ife | Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star

ASTROMUTATIO

High-Level Project Summary

AstroMutatio is a user-friendly web application that will not only teach you aboutthe variation in the blinking spot you see in your night sky but will also verify and test yourunderstanding about these far away massive shinning spheres called STARS.Our team merged the power of visual, auditory and kinestheticlearning by utilizing web technologies and multimedia contents tobuild a platform where users are open to diverse learning resources to learn about thevariation in stars.We covered the explanation of variable star classifications in a way that will trigger the love for astronomy in users by providing 3d visualizer, ranking system and a question-and-answer arena.

Link to Final Project

https://astromutatio.vercel.app/

Link to Project "Demo"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3F7nTt8osk

Detailed Project Description

Users are welcomed with a structured video contents that give a comprehensive explanation of what variable stars are and what triggers their variation, thereafter , they can move forward to visualize some variable stars in three dimensions as provided by the platform, users are also provided with a graphical representation of the variation in brightness of some variable stars.

We went further by providing a ranking system that ranges from novice-earthian, space-scholar, Voyager, solar-pro , milky-master to universalian, users' rank increase based on the number of quiz questions answered correctly and also their activities on the question and answer section of the platform called WHYSECTION .

THREE DIMENTIONAL VISUALIZER

We believe displaying variable stars in a way that appeals to the sense of touch will not only increase engagement with the subject but will also interest them and add meaning to the lessons.

On each 3d page, there are two buttons that link to the video explanation and the light curve of the particular variable star respectively.

LIGHT CURVE

We provided a graphical representation of the variation in brightness of each variable star plotted against period.

QUIZ AND RANKING

The quiz section was added to support user’s learning, help them identify progress, raise confidence and get deeper awareness of their understandings and misunderstandings.

Correctly answered quiz question will increase users' ranking on the platform, all users are ranked according to the number of points earned.

New users get the lowest rank called novice-earthian

Below is the list of ranks and their allocated point range:

Novice Earthian - {10 - 100 points}
Space Scholar - {101 – 200 points}
Voyager - {201 -300 points}
Solar Pro - {301 - 400 points}
Milky Master - {401 - 500 points}
Universalian - {501 -600 points}

QUESTION AND ANSWER SECTION

Logged-in users can post questions, ask questions or answer posted questions in this section. Contributing to the questions will earn a user 5points thereby increasing their ranking.

TECHNOLOGIES USED

The frontend of this web application was built with NextJS, styled with CSS, with the motive of ensuring that users get a high speed performance while the login backend API endpoints was built with NodeJS and ExpressJs, MongoDB database was used to store users informations.

The 3d visualizer was done with three.js, react-three-fiber and Rechart package was utilized for the creation of lightcurves

Space Agency Data

We utilized the resources NASA provided about cepheid variable in creating a visualizer of a star that dims and brightens periodically with its size shrinking and expanding. Data gotten from NASA’s resources provided a useful information for us about the period and some other valuable information about cepheid variable.

The information provided by NASA about the binary star system that have a white dwarf and a normal star companion guides both our video explanation, building of three dimensional visualizer and also the creation of light curve for cataclysmic variables.

More also, the GCSV- general catalog of variable stars provided by NASA served as a source to most of the variable stars sample used on the platform, we also got some other valuable information like period and brightness magnitude of variable stars from this resource.

Hackathon Journey

The space app challenge to our team members was a risk free self development opportunity, although rigorous but self improving, we were compelled to learn how to use new technologies, make an extensive research and improve our knowledge about stars, more precisely about stellar variability.

With no knowledge about 3-dimensional modelling before the hackathon, we were able to learn and utilize threeJS and react-fiber in getting our solution done.

The inspiration for twinkle twinkle little star challenge came from our curiosity to learn more about stars, how they’re formed, how they will be destroyed and the various types in existence.

We believed an organized combination of both audio, visual and aesthetic learning will make learning easier for an enthusiastic individual like us who will want to learn more about the twinkling stars in the night sky.

Challenges are inevitable especially when dealing with things you aren’t familiar with, but our optimism covered it all, As a team, we strongly believe everything can be learned.