Especial Perros - Space Apps Challenge

Especial Perros| Create a Mascot

Awards & Nominations

Especial Perros has received the following awards and nominations. Way to go!

Local Peoples' Choice Winner

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.

Juan the tardigrade

Summary

As information related to our planet and the universe becomes increasingly relevant, so does divulging it to younger audiences, as they are the next generation of scientists and professionals. At times in which distractions are more abundant than ever before, this is a particularly hard task to accomplish, but there is something to make it significantly easier: mascots, and that's where our tardigrade comes in.

How We Addressed This Challenge

Tardigrades, one of the few known animals able to survive in the vacuum common to outer space, have had an undeniable popularity peak in the last years, as they suddenly became one of the most prominent icons of space discovery. With that in mind, we decided to give them the role of mascots, of guides to the future of all human beings.

How We Developed This Project

As we dashed through the categories about twenty hours before the deadline of the competition, we caught a glimpse of “Create a Mascot”, and we couldn't help to think about making a 3D model of a tardigrade, as it has a particularly recognisable shape. Hours went by, and we were still thinking about all the things and characteristics it had to have: we knew that the tardigrade should be cute and cartoony, as we didn't want to terrorize younger audiences, and we also knew that we wanted it to wear some type of space suit to further represent space exploration and make it even more recognisable.

After having determined all the specifics of the tardigrade and its suit with the help of a wide variety of drafts and images, we started developing the 3D model in Blender. Many hours of intense designing later, the model was ready, and it turned out to be better than we expected it to be.

How We Used Space Agency Data in This Project

In this project, we used space agency data to reinforce the concepts we had about tardigrades, as we know it is very important to do so in order to achieve an accurate depiction of this mascot. We also used several reference images to design the 3D model.