The Quaran-team| Better Together
Better Together
ASTRO
Summary
The project is an application designed to fill the gap between people who belong to various minorities and assit them in pursuing their astronomy-related ambitions and passions.It will act as an educational platform that will feature credible space agency and experts resources and a curriculum that will assist and motivate people who are keen to pursue an astronomy-related career, but they bounded by their communities' misconceptions or flawed traditions such as being a minority is a barrier that one will never pass.It exposes the user to a wonderful experience where he or she jumps on a virtual spaceship and launches from one level of astronomical knowledge to another.
How We Addressed This Challenge
Nowadays, our society faces a lot of issues concerning the minorities. The world is submerged in racism and related thoughts. Minorities' roles are neglected which causes hatred among communities all over the world and fluctuates a firm balance.
The facts we settled on "Better Together" challenge focused mainly on filling a gap between the minorities in our society and their astronomical-related passions.
After brainstorming, we were able to collect data on several topics we needed to have knowledge about. Eventually, we have reached to a solution seemed satisfactory in solving the issue and filling the previously stated gap.
To make our idea available across a lot of platforms, we needed to start with a simple text editor like Sublime Text to write our HTML, JavaScript and CSS code. After creating the website, we used Android Studio to develop the mobile app based on the website. We wrote our XML code and added the WebView activity. Then we inserted our website code in it and finally we edited the Java code to render the Web Pages.
In the midst of developing the solution, we addressed a lot of problems like the pressure of time but we managed to bypass it by dividing the roles correctly , and we were able to finish our project. Also, another problem we addressed was to learn UI designing in this short period, but we were satisfied by the final user interface design we managed to finish considering the amount of time we were bounded to.
How We Developed This Project
Minorities in every field at every location increases everyday, which led some of them to not achieve what they want. However, many of these minorities were able to become very successful in their fields like Sally ride: "The first female accepted applicant in NASA's history". As a result, we wanted to target the minorities who want to study astronomy but lacked the necessary aid or resources. We designed a mobile app named "Astro" and a website with the same source code. This app is made to divide astronomy into a curriculum for beginners containing levels so that it is easily understandable. This curriculum will be set by real astronomers based on data from Nasa and other agencies in additionto credible books and other credible resources out there. Also, this app contains a blog that features all the latest astronomy news in addition to interactive pages to discover the space objects around you giving you details on every part. This app works by making scenes for the beginner appear vividly so that the eye and brain feel like it is easy to read. While advancing in the app, the amount of transitions and animations becomes lesser and the content begins to be more solid and more enriching. We want to deliver an enriching content to those minorities who want to learn astronomy and assist them in pursuing their passion.
How We Used Space Agency Data in This Project
Thankfully, we were provided with many sources to complete our searches and lay the foundation of our anticipatedcurriculum. Using these resources was much easier than researching the entire web for hours to find useful information; they were credible and featured in well-known agencies and online libraries.
We were able learn basic information about space-based astronomy and a view of the solar system which helped us a lot in making the app and constructing a curriculum from only trusted sources. We were also able to make content available for both kids and adults by learning about the space science from home resources for children and adults. Then, we wanted to make harder chapters and more in depth levels so we started learning about the universe in depth. And to top it off we needed some basic knowledge of cosmology, astrobiology, astrophysics, and planetary science.
We learned about planet detection methods which also helped us with the curriculum as well.
Moreover, the blog featured in our app is going to be fed with exclusive news from the various space agencies data, such as NASA, JAXA, and more. We couldn't rely more on resources published and featured on these agencies open source data because we were certain of their credibilty.
Project Demo
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GyQko8UNweuEjQfuO2UX4AXP3Xr69CCX/view?usp=sharing
Data & Resources
https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/58277main_Space.Based.Astronomy.pdf (educator guide yo learn space based astronomy)
https://eyes.jpl.nasa.gov/apps/orrery/#/home?close=false ( a view of solar system)
https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Space_science_from_home_resources_for_children_and_adults (Space_science_from_home_resources_for_children_and_adults)
https://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/astronomy/solar-system/default.asp (solar system information)
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/solar-system/beyond/in-depth/ (universe in depth)
https://science.nasa.gov/introduction-cosmology (introducion to cosmology)
https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/about/history-of-astrobiology/ (History of astrobiology)
https://sci.esa.int/web/astrophysics (Asrtrophysics)
https://global.jaxa.jp/projects/sas/planetary/ (Planetay science)
https://www.nasa.gov/kepler/overview/planetdetectionmethods (Planet detection methods)