The Debris Hunters| Orbital Scrap Metal — The Video Game
Project Details
The Challenge | Orbital Scrap Metal — The Video Game
The Debris Hunters
A 3D first person video arcade shooter where the user destroys space debris with a variety of tools including laser, harpoons and more!
PLAY THE GAME:
GITHUB:
https://github.com/debkeme/debris-hunter
PRESENTATION SLIDES
BACKGROUND
Did you take an Uber or a bus recently? Your Uber ride requires GPS. We depend on satellites to detect earthquakes and track wildfires. But there's something simple and seemingly innocuous that's actually threatening your way of life.
It's space garbage — pieces of metal, paint, and electronics that have sloughed off of satellites and spacecraft over the last 50 years. This is orbiting alongside mission-critical and business-critical systems that almost everyone in the world depend on.
For humans to continue to innovate, we need to commit to maintaining our satellite environment. This team's goal is to increase public awareness of space garbage and enable people to take action.
Orbital debris is already a known and growing problem, that countries and companies are working on. And you can't just shoot your way out of it — at least, not in the way you might think.
RESOURCES
Code
- Python, PyGame, PyOpenGL - create 3D modeling of NASA data
- Maya and Blender - create 3D assets
- C# - build game
- Unity
References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_broom
https://phys.org/news/2018-01-china-space-junk-las...
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa....
https://www.livescience.com/61453-china-satellite-...
https://io9.gizmodo.com/what-would-happen-if-all-o...
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-may-2...
https://io9.gizmodo.com/how-to-clean-up-deadly-spa...
http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com/space-debris/ke...
https://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/how-the-kessler-s...
NASA Data
https://celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/
CHALLENGES FACED
1. Originally imported NASA space debris data into a 3D model orbiting earth. However, the performance hit was too great for us to get this model to render and run the rest of the game, so unfortunately this aspect has been shelved. We are investigating using a pixel representation of the data. EDIT: but after hours of perseverence, we got the two systems to integrate.
2. Some team members were not able to leverage their specific skillsets because we had to find common coding ground. e.g. Some team members knew Python while others knew C# and so it was hard to merge those codesets.
3. Having a large team with a lot of talents meant that not every team member could contribute their best expertise and ended up helping with items they knew less about. (But everyone pitched in and worked well together!)
4. Scope constraint. We had so many fantastic ideas for the Debris Hunters game and were not able to implement these in the limited time allowed. We recorded astronaut voiceovers for the introductory sequence that was unfortunately cut due to time.