Astrolotes - Space Apps Challenge

Astrolotes| Create a Mascot

Create a Mascot

The world is full of scientific information that can help us make informed decisions and take action. However, that information is not always accessible to young learners. Your challenge is to create a mascot that can help make learning about Earth and space science more fun and welcoming for younger audiences.

Elote el Ajolote

Summary

We created a creature called Elote. Elote is an astronaut axolotl that can be used in a wide variety of situations.This little character could be used in informational videos, as the protagonist of educational video games or comic book series, -even have his own TV show! To give representation to our country, both the name and the design are based entirely on Mexican references: corn and axolotl. The latter being an animal that alone inspires confidence and tenderness, qualities that we visualize in our mascot. Because axolotls are not used as often as other animals, we believe that it can become easy to recognize as well as original way to represent an astronaut.

How We Addressed This Challenge

We developed a series of different characters of astronaut axolotls, which have different appearance but something in common, they are kind, beautiful, tender and gentle. The purpose of Elotes los Ajolotes is to encourage kids to interest in Science by making hard understanding topics into simple explication by brochures, images, comic books, cartoons, videos even a TV show!. It is important that the younger community feel identified with the character so that they will not be intimidated or afraid of science topics that can be seen as difficult.

Elotes los Ajolotes will explain each topic step by step focused on the kids' understanding. We as the creators will develop draws and other animated objects needed that will be part of the educational program. It is planned to have motion and voice for each axolotl, but that needs a deeper development.

The axolotls are different because one of our ethical values is to have and accept diversity in all aspects by being inclusive. (We will have more diversity in character but original axolotls have -in general- that condition).

We expect to reach each kid in the world for them to have an accessible and understandable official and supported way of learning science.

How We Developed This Project

Inspiration.

Social impact of science leads up to promote scientific study to guarantee the development of countries.However, there is a constant desertion in scientific fields on each education level. Crisis of teaching in secondary education is currently affecting most countries, especially in science areas (Fourez, 1999, 2002). We’re tackling the root problem. It is extremely important to decide how to educate new generations, as this will determine the progress for individuals and society. Usually, we are introduced to science through boring long talks describing the scientific method. This, along with other educational flaws, wards off the interest from children. We want to approach the subject of teaching from another perspective. We believe that developing an appropriate, multifaceted and attractive character for young minds can not only foster their interest but also their learning.

Mascot development

Looks and personality

First we shall understand that children process information in different ways than adults. Understanding this allowed us to develop a good, adaptable and friendly character that can help them to understand complicated concepts, such as dark matter. In order to accomplish its goal, a mascot should be attractive to the public that is designed for. Our mascot is designed for children over 6 to 12 years old. We stand out this period of human development since this age range continues to be few studied with respect using of interactive media for educational purposes compared to young children (2-5 years) and adolescents (12-17 years)

We understand that children are especially attracted to animals: They feel identified with them because, in fiction, animals often appear humanized and living as children. Children find comfort on that. For that reason, we decided that our character must be a humanized animal representing a little child and like all children is curious and playful. In order to make it interesting, we chose to give it an exciting and inspiring job as an astronaut. Astronauts have been great inspiration for children over several generations, they express the dreams of humanity on a scientific and better future through technological advances.

From the beginning, we wanted to include aspects of our homeland, based on the points mentioned before, we decided that our mascot was an axolotl. Since as a national symbol, smiling cheek to cheek and with three pink pairs of gills has captivated generations of admirers. Unlike other amphibians, the axolotl is considered charismatic and cute. Qualities that are part of Elote’s personality and we’re taking it like an advantage to be close to children.

Tools

For creating the character we used Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop because these tools allow us to be faithful to our original design. These programs offered us appropriate design tools for creating graphic elements, taking advantage of the capacity of software and our knowledge of it. We developed different versions of the character due to we want to create a representative look for any child. We also decided to use it on several platforms and other interesting media for children like video games, Youtube videos, TV programs and informative posters.

Character’s message

We want the pet to be able to motivate, inspire and awaken a passion for science in children. In addition, we want each child to be able to identify themselves with Elote and admire it, regardless of the social context. Elote is not a simple animation or illustration. Elote is proof that science does not have to be boring and repetitive, much less exclusive. Science is for everyone! It doesn't matter if you are a six year old or an amphibian who refuses to go extinct.

Conclusion and future plans

We believe aerospace and STEM areas are the future, that’s the importance of take action for getting clouse youngs to these topics, using original ideas. We managed to design concept art of the character we wanted to design. We are sure this character has potential and is capable of accomplishing the objectives stated on this project. Its potential is joined to a friendly design and great aerospace message. We are planning to use this character to record educational videos and upload them to Youtube as we are sure the first step for change and improvement starts with the proper education of children . We chose that platform because we believe that is a versatile media for divulgation. We also decided to start designing a video game featuring him. Video games will work as another way to expand character scope.