What inspired us to choose this challenge?

Being connected is not enough. One must be able to use the power of connectivity to address the problems that we face in daily life.

We are a team of high school students. We always wanted to connect with different organizations in our region that organized various programs related to space exploration, astronomy, astrophysics, and space science and technology. But we couldn’t find anything on the internet that gave us the visual representation of space-related organizations working in our locality.

So, we were inspired to develop a solution to demonstrate the visual representation of the breadth of the space sector’s influence, showing the network of organizations and locations associated with the work of space exploration.

Another major inspiration for the project was Google, where one can search and find anything.

We wanted out project to act like a Google for space organizations.

What was our approach to develop this project?

First, we brainstormed on how we could visually represent the breadth of the space industry. Then, we prepared a plan to collect data related to space organizations in our region. We also used data from NASA and CSA to find and locate different space organizations all over the world. Thus, our project has a huge potential because anyone can contribute to the project by sending us a message through the “CONTRIBUTE” tab on our project website. We considered the wide scale implications of this project before developing it.

What tools, coding languages, hardware, software did you use to develop your project?

First, we registered the domain name findyourspace.us for free using the GoDaddy registry offer from the Global Collaborator Offer of NASA Space Apps Challenge. Then, we used Wordpress to develop and customize the website to make it user friendly.

For the data collection part, we heavily relied on manual data mining. We searched through various data repositories of NASA, CSA and other organizations (listed in the references section). Then we created a spreadsheet for each location (e.g. a spreadsheet for Pokhara, another for Kathmandu, etc.). We added different organizations, their descriptions, websites and locations to the spreadsheet.

To make the custom maps, we used Google My Maps. We imported the spreadsheets and customized the markers for different locations. Then we embedded the maps of different locations in different Wordpress posts.

Finally, we added a search plugin to add a search bar on the homepage. The search bar let’s users search a location (e.g. a city or a country) and find different space-related organizations in that location.

What problems and achievements did your team have?

Some problems we had are:

·      We weren’t that familiar with making websites, so we had to learn it.

·      We had problems in communications due to frequent power-cuts.

·      We had a lot of difficulty in finding accurate and relevant data in our region.

Despite these problems, our team had these achievements:

·      Many of our teammates got familiar with NASA and CSA Data.

·      We learned more about making “good” websites.

·      As a result of our collaboration, we bonded.

·      We got to know each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

We collected data from various NASA websites listed in the references.

The data we used was the Name, description, website link and some images of different organizations under NASA.

We used the data to make custom interactive maps that would help people find and explore Space Exploration Projects and Space Agencies near them (Thus, addressing the challenge “Space Exploration in Your Backyard”).

In the custom maps we made using Google My Maps, we added labels and description that was available form NASA. We also added links to different NASA owned websites so that users could go to those websites if they wanted to know more about that organization.

The fact that the data we obtained from NASA was almost entirely based in the North American region greatly influenced our project. We used the data form NASA to locate space organizations in the US. But we used reliable external sources (not listed in the references section) to find locally relevant data for our maps.

Link to slides: https://bit.ly/3nrmBWi

Link to demo video: https://youtu.be/lPv09pTKQqI

For Data Collection:

1. https://www.nasa.gov/stem/epscor/home/index.html

2. https://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/home/index.html

3. https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/glenn/2020/nasa-university-hospitals-join-forces-in-response-to-covid-19/

4. https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-announces-us-industry-partnerships-to-advance-moon-mars-technology/

5. https://www.nasa.gov/partnerships/recent-partnerships.html

6. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-awards-cooperative-agreements-for-research-and-development-programs/

7. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/esd/2020/nasa-supercomputers-power-covid-19-research/

8. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/nasa-and-uber-test-system-for-future-urban-air-transport

9. https:/https://www.google.com/maps

10. https://www.nasa.gov/stem/epscor/home/index.html

11. https://www.nasa.gov/stem/epscor/home/EPSCoR_Directors.html

12. https://www.nasa.gov/stem/about/

13. https://www.nasa.gov/aam

14. https://www.nasa.gov/partnerships.html

15. https://www.nasa.gov/aamnationalcampaign/

16. https://sbir.nasa.gov/advanced_search

17. https://www.nasa.gov/aeroresearch/one-word-change-expands-nasas-vision-for-future-airspace/

18. https://www.nasa.gov/stem/

19. https://history.nasa.gov/

20. https://www.go-astronomy.com/

For making custom maps: https://mymaps.google.com/

For registering the website:

1. https://www.spaceapps.earth/
2. https://porkbun.com

For developing the website: https://wordpress.org/