Space Explorer

Do you have an idea that doesn't fit any of the other challenges? This is the place for you, whether you want to design and develop an app, create a data visualization, hack on an Arduino... or anything else you can think of!

Space Explorer - an immersive way to experience the universe and beyond

In school, teaching about space has limitations when you describe the solar system, comets, black holes or other items. Teachers may be able to show pictures or even a video but it doesn’t allow students to interact with the concepts to capture their interest or help them understand.

Space Explorer uses augmented and virtual reality to let users experience space from either a third person omniscient or first person perspective. Teachers can put the entire solar system in their classroom and point to the sun, planets and moons while they move through their orbits. Students seeing this can then use gazed-based interaction to click on an object and jump to virtual reality and see the rest of the solar system from the surface of that planet or moon. Again while everything is orbiting through space. Students can continue to move between augmented and virtual realty moving from planet to planet or the different moons.

If you are trying to explain how a comet moves through space and picks up speed around the sun, you could use augmented reality to see it move through our solar system and then via virtual reality you could hop on the comet and ride it past the sun.

The best part about this solution is that it uses basic tools available in most schools. All you need is a smart phone and an inexpensive headset such as the one I am using.

Space Explorer - an immersive way to experience the universe and beyond

Google cardboard, Unity, C#, Vuforia API