Team Monke (TM)| Orbital Scrap Metal – The Video Game V2.0
Orbital Scrap Metal – The Video Game V2.0
Orbital Debris: Monke's Metal Collectors
Summary
Our project features an interactive video game that simulates a spacecraft using a robotic arm to collect orbital debris. Our video game builds on the concept of processing and repurposing orbital scrap metal, instead of ‘de-orbiting’ the debris (sending it towards Earth to burn up in the atmosphere). Each piece of debris captured gives a certain amount of coins. For an interactive and interesting gameplay experience, we have included the ability to upgrade certain aspects of the spaceship such as housing, factories, number of solar panels and storage. This also alludes to the future of life in space and the construction of habitable areas for hum
How We Addressed This Challenge
Our project addresses the challenge by suggesting one of the heavily researched ways to collect space debris. We used existing research provided by European Space Agency along with our own innovation to find a way to collect space debris. This is important because in the near future, space exploration is going to be an essential field of research and releasing parts of rockets will be problematic as the orbital debris might collide with existing space stations or satellites. We hope to achieve a successful and sustainable way of safely collecting orbital debris.
How We Developed This Project
Our team chose this project because we all share a great interest in the future of space exploration. We read about the obstacles orbital debris posed and decided to take action.
Our game was made using Javascript. The coding software Atom was used due to its collaboration capabilities, and the accompanying website was created using Adobe Dreamweaver. An original soundtrack was composed on Noteflight and bit-crushed using GXSCC to match the game’s 8-bit style. All assets were created by ourselves, including the introduction video and all icons and logos; icons were made using GIMP and the video was edited using Davinci Resolve 16. API data was retrieved from a site provided by SpaceApps. Due to time constraints, some planned parts of the project were scrapped, and the interface simplified.
How We Used Space Agency Data in This Project
JSON data from a site provided by SpaceApps (SpaceBirds) was used to count the number of currently tracked debris. Data from Space-Track.org was originally planned to be used; however, due to technical difficulties regarding the JSON data being locked behind a login, it was not used. As such, a static version of the data from Space-Track provided by SpaceBirds was used instead. The number of tracked debris is displayed on the bottom of the webpage that includes our game. The number of asteroids that appear is influenced by that number.
Project Demo
Link To Music:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1v-7Q5tV6WDhuqBK5BYJL37nJrvFzbQJo/view?usp=sharing
Link To Demonstration Video:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ttJwWruI-Q3FPgp1qiMBoAofTbYijZL0/view?usp=sharing
Data & Resources
Docs-Web WorldWind/NASA WorldWind. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/web/docs/#anchor
Tutorials-Web WorldWind/NASA WorldWind. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/web/tutorials/#anchor
WorldWindEarth. (n.d.). WorldWindEarth/worldwind-web-app. Retrieved from https://github.com/WorldWindEarth/worldwind-web-app
WorldWindLabs. (n.d.). WorldWindLabs/SpaceBirds. Retrieved from https://github.com/WorldWindLabs/SpaceBirds
WorldWindLabs. (2020, October 03). WorldWindLabs/SpaceBirds. Retrieved from https://github.com/WorldWindLabs/SpaceBirds/blob/master/docs/SpaceApps.md
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