Lazy Sloth - Space Apps Challenge

Lazy Sloth| Breakthrough

Breakthrough

Faster-than-light travel is the key to humanity’s dreams of inter-galactic space travel. Your challenge is to create an app, tool, game, or other interactive application that showcases both existing, as well as next generation/theoretical, breakthrough spacecraft propulsion in an engaging way.

Rocket tap

Summary

A simple simulation game to increase public awareness on Space Travel, Visualizing rocket propulsion and satellite imagery shows warnings on the planet's condition with addicting gameplay.

How We Addressed This Challenge

We developed an app that simulates space travel. We implemented visualization out of particles to create seamless realistic graphics from the NASA database. We haven't put in this feature yet. However, we intend to add a satellite mode, which allows us to use data from satellite imagery to show surface conditions on the Earth to raise awareness about Earth. We also plan to add new engines and new space travel methods, such as the ion engine and nuclear thermal propulsion engine. Also, We wanted to get players to be self-aware of the planet's condition and enjoy different cosmetics that will be implemented in the future.

How We Developed This Project

We love to imagine the possibilities of new discoveries, so we chose breakthrough as our challenge. At first, we were clueless about what type of project we should make, we ended up making a game since it looked really fun, and a game has much potential to make breakthroughs. We used unity as our main game engine and c# as our main coding language. We have faced multiple problems and errors in doing this project. One of the main problems is our repository overlayed multiple times, which causes to redo changes.

Another problem we encounter is fps issues because we started to develop on windows built. We did not realize that android has a different capability when it comes to running the game. However, this project has taught us a lot about space, rockets, and more about programming. Although we're not satisfied with our result, we had much fun.

How We Used Space Agency Data in This Project

We used 3d models from the NASA database for the texture of the planets and used the Saturn V rocket model for the spacecraft. We also plan to use the blueprints for the ion engine and the nuclear propulsion. The audio for launch and the shuttle gear drops are gathered from the NASA audio and ringtones database. The scale of the planets is based on NASA's diameter measurement found on the fact sheet metric.