Mission to Planet Earth: A Digital History
NASA’s activities in space have brought new knowledge of the Earth, inspiring new ways of thinking about humanity and the planet. However, many people aren’t aware that NASA studies the Earth in addition to other planets. Your challenge is to tell stories of NASA’s Earth science enterprise using interactive digital tools. This will test your technical skills and your ability to think like a historian or educator.
Experience and Learn
Summary
Our Game app E&L is based on both Experience and Learning. As found that the most effective method to grab someone's attention for a global problem or a phenomenon - especially those who do not care about the world's problems - is if she/he or someone close to them getting affected by this problem. This applies to many issues that the world had gone through like Tsunamis and lately like COVID-19 for instance. In our game, we try to precede events by encountering the user to one of these events through a life animation -VR in future developments- then educate the user about this problem that faces the universe. Also trying to advise them for precautions to take if happened and they faced it.
How We Addressed This Challenge
1-We addressed this challenge with real importance to inform so many of people who don't know that NASA studies the earth as well as other planets. NASA's studies and satellite photos about Tsunamis helped scientist know more about Tsunami's formation. Counting on NASA’s data researchers started building new theories while replacing other old and proved to be false ones. We wanted to help people know more about tsunamis and the reasons for its formation through an easy and interactive way. No more interactive way than being inside one. We will provide the user by real scenes and experiments held by NASA scientists to understand tsunami formation. We will make a series of questions and explanations to them. Therefore, the user will understand the theory in a better way as well as knowing more about NASA's efforts in studying earth sciences.
2- We chose to make our solution in an interactive application, by which the user will see a video of a scene from tsunami. Afterwards, he will be transferred to a lecture room where a scientist will describe NASA's scientists theory about through easy questions, and on the screen in the lecturer there will be photos and videos taken by NASA satellites to illustrate more of the information being said. Therefore, the user will understand the theory behind tsunamis' formation.
How We Developed This Project
Development Process
1- We met as a team and sat to share thoughts, to dream about how to solve the challenge until we came up with an initial plan.
2- We did a survey so we could know people's opinions about the challenge.
3- What mostly inspired us was how little people knew about disasters that happen overseas or even in the same country but for people they do not know, and how they cannot feel what is like to go through such thing.
4- Then we shared the tasks, as some of us wrote a script about the plot of the game, the initial form of the game, and how it's supposed to be, then we concluded that at the beginning of the game we'd have to let the player live in a simulation of the crises so he understands the scale of the dilemma we're talking about and its seriousness, then we - in a simple way- explain to him the scientific reasons for this disaster and the previous attempts of scientists to understand it.
5- As some gathered the information, materials and data we will need, at the same time some developed the models and animations using the Blender engine, and others used the Unity engine to build the game itself.
Future Work
1- Turning the game into VR so that the experience could be more immersive and real.
2- Adding more world problems and experiences from around the world like Hurricanes, Pandemics, Earthquakes, and Volcanic eruptions.
3- Adding more features like sharing personal experiences and knowledge between the users.
4- Adding competitions and and creating a competitive spirit.
5- Finally, we will start advertising and marketing for the game to spread it as much as possible.
How We Used Space Agency Data in This Project
To achieve our educational purpose towards the user, we needed a reliable source to get the information and knowledge that we needed to deliver for the users. NASA's data and research work was a great help for our progress in our project. We were able to use knowledge from scientific articles about Tsunami Formation Theory on NASA's website. We were also able to use explanatory images from NASA'S Jet Propulsion Laboratory -images library- describing Tsunami effects on seashores and cities and different satellite images that further explain the happening of Tsunamis. Moreover, we used data from NASA/German Aerospace Center Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) to show how mass is distributed within and between Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, groundwater, and ice sheets are fundamental indicators of the large-scale dynamics of the planet. In order to further explain how the scientists at NASA were able to contradict the old theories about Tsunami, we needed to explain how the wave tank experiment is done using a Demonstration by NASA scientists.
Project Demo
Project Code
Data & Resources
NASA Resources
1- NASA Study Challenges Long-held Tsunami Formation Theory:
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasa-study-challenges-long-held-tsunami-formation-theory
2- Jet Propulsion Laboratory Images:
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/index.php?search=Tsunami&category=#submit
3- NASA/German Aerospace Center Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE):
https://gracefo.jpl.nasa.gov/data/grace-fo-data/
4-Internal Wave Tank Demonstration:
https://swot.jpl.nasa.gov/resources/147/internal-wave-tank-demonstration/
5- Mapping Earth Motion from the Illapel Earthquake:
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/86703/mapping-earth-motion-from-the-illapel-earthquake
Other Reseources
1- https://www.flickr.com/photos/westphalen/1419828522
2- https://cosmosmagazine.com/geoscience/new-light-on-how-tsunamis-form/
3- https://www.usgs.gov/centers/pcmsc/science/life-a-tsunami?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects
4- Wave Tank Helps Study Tsunamis:
https://youtu.be/SPzxHTHiuHs
5- Tsunami Detection System:
http://www.bom.gov.au/tsunami/about/detection_buoys.shtml
6- Animation Characters:
https://www.mixamo.com/#/
7- Animaker for creating Animation:
Tags
#game #virtual_reality #VR #animation #3D #learn
Judging
This project was submitted for consideration during the Space Apps Judging process.