Hey! What Are You Looking At?
UniVRse
Summary
UniVRse is an app and a web service to give easy access to the information given by the different aerospace agencies, the idea is also to spread science in the society using an actractive visual method as the VR, we are doing a platform full of visual information and using this technology we are planning to show different Astrophysics and Astronomy phenomena while you are using a VR Headset or Google Cardboard. We are also implementing a new technology to control a robot using VR in our houses to teach about control, as the first step in the space exploration. We are giving to the people the pleasure to experience the space in their houses and the same time learning about our our vast cosmos
How We Addressed This Challenge
We are expressively creating an app, a visualization tool to help people interested in this topic giving the easy and quickly access to the data using the Virtual Reality. It is important because as a world in development we need more scientists and people interested in these kind of careers. So the people already interested is going to be in a completely new experience of feeling the space using the physical senses, not only in a paper or in a whiteboard. It important too because it could be a new way to give online classes and of course, bring more people to the Aerospace and Astronomy field. You have to use your Google Cardboard or VR headset and then, you will enter to the different categories inside the app.
How We Developed This Project
First of all, we got inspiration because we're passionate people to the Astrophysics and all of the extraterrestrial phenomena, so we felt challenged to do this one, because we want to experience, to learn more, and of course, give the people the tool to learn and get interested too. Our approach was to teach and give easy access to the information hidden in the big datacenters of the Space Agencies. We used Figma to design the UI of the mobile app, for the webpage we used Wix, so we can give a little demonstration of the 360 degree universe images, we used Photoshop and Blender to make some of the images to show in the webpage and how the images would be like. We tried a lot of different platforms to make this project happens, and we had to try different pages to have the best of the results, we had some problems with some of the computers and the internet connection since we are in an online hackathon. We could use Blender really good and we were able to make the short video and the UI for the cellphone.
2.1. App
Details to highlight of the application:
· Integrates a new technology, VR, for a better user experience.
· It has an easy-to-use interface and is fully interactive
· All information comes from NASA databases
· The application has a social network and a forum to share ideas and news related to space with the possibility to talk with important people in the field with verified accounts.
User interface o Main screen:
When you enter the application, we can find the screen that shows us the space in virtual reality, using the technology of 360 degree video, made in Adobe Photoshop:
From this screen you can go to the multiple options in the app, one of them is "New Features" which shows us ads about BM0 Robot and our YouTube channel:
From the main screen we can also select the “Explore” button, this takes us to a menu of the list of topics which the user can learn through VR:
Another of the multiple options in our app is a menu with different options for the user:
Quiz Screen:
In this page you can check you progress with the knowledge that you achived with the application. You will find different topics and everything related to the Astrophysics and Astronomy.
Forum interface
You can also have a personal profile in where you will find people passionate in this field, you can ask questions and everything you want.
Contact list:
App link: https://www.figma.com/proto/VxQJbN8ozKUnU1qrq4Solk/UNIVRSE?node-id=43%3A4&scaling=scale-down
2.2: Website
The main platform of our project is a web page which has all the information to guide the user through virtual reality and space.
It looks like this:
On the main screen we show our identity as a project and its general objective.
On our website we also show our virtual reality app for all those interested in carrying the universe in their pocket:
In addition, we show and explain a little of the new technologies implemented in the project:
In the next section we present our ways of taking the virtual reality experience to the next level:
At the end of our website we create a direct communication channel with the organization to request a demonstration of our products:
Web link: https://univrse2020.wixsite.com/home
As future plans we want to make like a livestream platform to see our planet, the moon or even Mars, but using VR, right now is a really new technology, so we are planning to have this brand new idea, something really new when you want to teach Astrophysics or even science.
How We Used Space Agency Data in This Project
We used NASA data to build the Solar System animation, and we did a reseachr looking for information related to which satellites can transmit Livestreams in 360, also we made a research to have a background about missions whose objective was to collect images, using nasa.gov data
Project Demo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OQzHGagnGA&ab_channel=UniVRse
Data & Resources
Data & Resources
[online] https://api.nasa.gov/mars-photos/api/v1/rovers/curiosity/photos?earth_date=2020-1-1&api_key=DEMO_KEY [visited on 10/3/2020]
[online] https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/panoramas/?page=0&per_page=25&order=pub_date+desc&search=&category=304%2C305%3A176&url_suffix=%3Fsite%3Dmsl [visited on 10/3/2020]
[online] https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/mission-updates/ [visited on 10/3/2020]
[online] https://mars.nasa.gov/news/curiosity-peels-back-layers-on-ancient-martian-lake/ [visited on 10/3/2020]
[online] https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7610 [visited on 10/3/2020]
[online] https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/main/index.html [visited on 10/3/2020]
[online] https://www.xataka.com/espacio/el-primer-satelite-en-el-mundo-con-camara-de-realidad-virtual-sera-puesto-en-orbita-en-2017 [visited on 10/3/2020]