
ProtoPlanet Planners is an on-line "strategic sandbox" game that educates its players about different aspects of astrophysics and NASA discoveries of stars and exoplanets in the known Universe. The game allows users to select a host star, to generate a star system with semi-random parameters of the host star and its habitable zone, and to start planning and designing an exoplanetary system.
The goal of the game is to create a sustainable planetary system that is resistant to different cosmic perturbations, such as comet fly-by's, host star evolution, supernova explosion nearby, etc.
The learning component of the game includes interactions between game elements based on known astrophysics formulas (for example, of a habitable zone of a star) and references to existing discoveries of exoplanets.
Links:
- Presentation: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RBMZIw2GjPT6mqgQp...
- Demo webpage: http://ppp.megageneration.com
- Working demo code: https://www.khanacademy.org/computer-programming/p...
Inspiration and resources used:
- NASA's Eyes Visualization: Eyes on Exoplanets;
- NASA Exoplanet Exploration;
- NASA Science: Solar System Exploration.