Space crafters has received the following awards and nominations. Way to go!
We already have a whole universe of knowledge, most of people only know a small part of it. Do we know how our solar system behaves? Do the people around us know that they are such thing as “the exoplanets”? Do they know what planets and stars are made of?
These are some of the questions that we ask ourselves when we were deciding what challenge we were going to do. We wanted to develop something that can help people reach new knowledge in an easy, interactive and entertainment way, no matter the age.
We were inspired by sharing knowledge with all the humankind, in every single point at the planet. Everybody can fall in love with the universe and its beauty and secrets.
They only need a little push to get into this awesome experience! We believe that our game can be that little push.
What it does
The challenge was to create a game that will allow players to customize the characteristics of a star and design planets that could reasonably exist in that star system. So we think about creating a video game with two “modes”.
Science background
Science background
The following are some of the resources that we used to answer certain questions that we planted ourselves as we developed the video game.
Within these doubts there are questions such as:
The most recent definition of planet was adopted by the International Astronomical Union in 2006. It says that a planet must do three things:
The researchers found that the critical size is approximately 2.7 percent of the Earth's mass. If an object is smaller than 2.7 percent of the Earth's mass, its atmosphere will escape before it has a chance to develop surface liquid water
Planetary habitability is a measure of the potential of an astronomical body to sustain life. It can be applied to both the planets and the natural satellites of the planets. The only absolute requirement for life is a source of energy. For this reason, it is interesting to determine the habitability zone of different stars, but the notion of planetary habitability implies the fulfillment of many other geophysical, geochemical and astrophysical criteria so that an astronomical body is capable of sustaining life.
The habitability zone depending on the distance to the central star and its mass (and with approximate spectral types). By comparison, the innermost planets of the Solar System and the four discovered orbiting the star GJ 581 are included.
The habitability zone around a star is defined as the range of orbital distances where a planet could contain liquid water. This phenomenon implies that it is assumed that water is indispensable for the appearance of life, which does not have to be rigorously true.
Asteroids are small, rocky objects that orbit the sun. Although asteroids orbit the sun like planets, they are much smaller than planets.
The sun is a star, a hot ball of glowing gases at the heart of our solar system. Its influence extends far beyond the orbits of distant Neptune and Pluto. Without the sun's intense energy and heat, there would be no life on Earth. And though it is special to us, there are billions of stars like our sun scattered across the Milky Way galaxy.
Dwarf planets are round in shape and orbit the Sun just like the eight major planets. But unlike planets, dwarf planets are not able to clear their orbital path so there are no similar objects at roughly the same distance from the Sun. A dwarf planet is much smaller than a planet (smaller even than Earth's moon), but it is not a moon. The first five recognized dwarf planets are Ceres, Pluto, Eris, Makemake and Haumea and they are all uniquely mysterious.
Comets are cosmic snowballs of frozen gases, rock and dust roughly the size of a small town. When a comet's orbit brings it close to the sun, it heats up and spews dust and gases into a giant glowing head larger than most planets. The dust and gases form a tail that stretches away from the sun for millions of kilometers. Comets may not be able to support life themselves, but they may have brought water and organic compounds -- the building blocks of life -- through collisions with Earth and other bodies in our solar system.
A black hole has a gravitational pull that is so intense that nothing, not even light, can escape it once inside a certain region, called the event horizon.
Development process
We began to investigate about the universe, its composition, creation, elements and every part of what composes it, we learned everything we could in a few hours.
Before we start planning the game, we review the resources offered by NASA. We extract the important parts to give the environment and parameters as real as possible.
After that, we started planning what our game would look like and what things it would have. In addition to the platform on which we would develop it: unity. Then we started looking for resources that you can use in unity since it was the first time we used it.
When we set out to start programming we realize that we have to program in C#, a language that no one of us know, so we check online basic programming of C#.
We made the parts of the game in the order the user was seeing them, that's why we begin by creating the space in which one would work, "the background", then we made the background of the program rotate to make it look more real. And then we started to create the menus. This was made by using a lot of buttons.
After that we made the logos and the main images in Photoshop so we can made that prettier to look at. We made an intro for the game.
Challenges
Not knowing how to use unity was one of our biggest challenges, since it limited us from having to learn the functions and then put them into practice.
At first, our lack of communication made us lose valuable hours..
Achievements
We learned how to use new tools such as Photoshop and unity.
We were able to improve our ability to work in a team and resilience.
We create something which can result in an entertaining experience in which adults and children enjoy the wonders of space.
For customers
With this game you can learn everything about your home: space. Your challenge is simple, create your own solar system and make life flourish in it.
It is educational and will teach you a lot about the celestial bodies that exist in our universe, while you are having fun!
For NASA
With a little artificial intelligence, dedication and multiple players around the world you can create data of a lot possible combinations for the creation of the planets.
We want to continue improving our game, we believe it has a lot of potential in education. We want to do this upgrades:
Nasa resources
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/learn/video/space-place-in-a-snap-the-solar-systems-formation/
https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/exoplanet-catalog/
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/overview/
https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/how-many-moons/sp/
Other resources
http://www.astroyciencia.com/2012/06/14/condicione...
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/overview/
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planeta_enano#Tama%C3%B1o_y_masa_de_los_planetas_enanos
https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/ciencia/fisica/sistemas-planetarios-y-la-zona-de-habitabilidad/
Tool used
We use unity to make the game, C# to program and photoshop to make the images.
Open code
https://github.com/pedronaranjo09/NASAYou can also enjoy ower game here https://github.com/pedronaranjo09/NASA
#Game, #SolarSystem, #Planets, #Universe, #Unity, #C#, #science, #moon, #satellite, #exoplanet, #create, #build, #SpaceCrafters #SeeYouInNASA