GoSpaceClub — Discovering Science Connections with NASA.
This article describes how we solved a NASA Space Apps Challenge in 48 hours, being among the Brazilian finalists in the biggest hackathon event in the world.
Intro — Hackathon
What is a hackathon? Well, I had no idea what a hackathon meant until last year — So if you don’t know, it’s a hacker marathon, whose goal is to turn a real challenge into an innovative solution. By the way, back in 2018, I made a lot of discoveries that changed my way of thinking, and naturally, it hit me that my life would never be the same again.
From then on, I decided to be more daring, and I immersed myself in the UX Design world.
In my first hackathon, I chose to participate in the NASA Space Apps Challenge. An event that takes place annually at a global level, and that this year took place between October 1st and 3rd, 2021.
At first, I had difficulty finding a team in the challenges I liked the most. So, I was invited to join the GoSpace team, composed by Jhonatan Tomimatsu(technology), Mirelle Toth(marketing), Mauro Santos(designer), and André Gomes(business).
The challenge
The challenge chosen by our team was Discovering Science Connections. The aim was to find connections between NASA’s diverse scientific disciplines and communicate those connections innovatively and interestingly to new and diverse audiences.
There are five science divisions in NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD): Earth Science, Astrophysics, Heliophysics, Planetary Science, and Biological and Physical Sciences. At first glance, it looks like these divisions study completely different things — such as searching for distant galaxies and growing veggies on the International Space Station. However, when you look closer, there are many connections. For example, NASA studies the water cycle on Earth, the Hubble Telescope found water molecules in a distant nebula, and astronauts train for spacewalks in huge swimming pools. Does understanding life on Earth facilitate our search for life elsewhere? Some connections are obvious, but others could be more subtle. Science in one domain may inform discoveries in other disciplines; alternatively, scientists might use the same methods or technologies to make discoveries in different fields. Just like science discoveries come from new ways of looking at things around us, we are hoping that you will bring a new perspective to the way we look at NASA science and how it is all connected.
Objectives
The developed solution could include new platforms, new audiences, or simply stories told in a new way.
The points defined to evaluate the project were:
- New connections between the NASA science disciplines.
- New ways to tell stories relating to a variety of space science disciplines, either on a new platform or in a new voice.
- Stories told in ways that resonate with new audiences.
Development process
Shared work
Local event administrators provided a communication channel for hackathon attendees on Discord. So, to ensure that the entire process was documented and that communication between our team members flowed naturally and quickly, we also created a group on Whatsapp.
Other tools were also used by the team for collaboration and idea development, including Miro, Adobe Illustrator, and Figma. And to provide web hosting and website development we use Github.
Team Challenges on Day One
The initial stage brought many setbacks, from the formation of the team to the alignment of the chosen challenge. The team consisted of six people, but for work reasons, we lost one of them. Afterward, we had problems creating the hosting location for our solution. Furthermore, we face difficulties in defining our starting point. And at this point, it had been 5 hours since the beginning of the event.
However, once we understood the challenge and moved to ideation, the team sketched the first insights for the project. The idea was to create a solution with Augmented Reality technology. Through a QR code, the user could interact with the solution. However, at the end of the first day of the marathon, we prioritized another idea.
Users
The creation of a Proto-persona helped us to understand what the profile of our users was, and to look for ideas with a focus on them.
Here our biggest challenge was to think of ways in which our project could make our users look at NASA science from another standpoint and perhaps inspire them to become scientists, engineers, or science communicators.
CSD Matrix
Faced with the immense challenge of the first day to find a direction, we had difficulty aligning ideas. And just as the team was starting to lose motivation, I realized it was the ideal time to apply the framework to speed up the discovery process, the CSD Matrix, which is the Portuguese acronym for “Certezas, Suposições e Dúvidas”(Certainties, Assumptions, and Doubts).
From there, the collaborative climate changed and we began to make progress, albeit minimal.
Alternative solutions
How might we raise awareness and create connections between NASA’s diverse scientific disciplines and communicate those links in an innovative and interesting way?
Then we use the How Might We framework to rephrase the problem. This helped us to see the problem from a new perspective, opening the way for new solutions.
Crazy 8's
Despite the concern of some team members about the deadline, I dared to suggest that we apply one more design tool where just 8 minutes would be enough to further stimulate the team’s creativity. Crazy 8’s helped in this process.
Benchmarking
We knew we needed to end the day with a definite alternative solution. So, we quickly searched for some references that could serve as inspiration.
1 — Goopy: Reference for the idea of implementing Augmented Reality on the website.
2 — Duolingo: Learning solution reference in a playful and fun way.
3 — Interland: It’s an online game full of adventures that put into practice the main lessons of digital citizenship and security. 3D graphics.
4 — GoSpace: Alternative Solution suggested by the team, based on gamification. It does not make up a benchmark reference, but rather a basis for starting product development.
It was at this point that we realized that an Augmented Reality solution would be unfeasible, taking into account the resources and available time. So we prioritized the idea of GoSpace team, which then became GoSpaceClub, a platform designed to connect the younger generation to NASA’s knowledge and research directories. The platform takes advantage of Duolingo’s gamification concepts in a playful and fun way.
The solution
We are introducing a solution using a gamification heuristic based on SaaS service and partnership business models. Our platform seeks to arouse the curiosity of young people in our society to bring more people to the field of space science that NASA offers. We are using software engineering best practices with a secure authentication system to ensure the integrity of each user’s data. Our goal is to educate and engage a new generation through a more accessible and fun language.
Wireframes
Although we also made the mobile version, the team prioritized the web version to help with the presentation of the proposed idea.
User flow
Medium Fidelity Prototype
You can access the medium-fidelity prototype by clicking here.
Styleguide
We used the NASA Style Guide as the basis for our design and chose the Barlow font.
The Brand
High Fidelity Prototype
Due to the deadline, the Medium-fidelity and High-fidelity prototypes were not tested with users. However, we understand it would be very important during the user-centered process, and it might be done in the next steps.
Check out our demo version of the final GoSpaceClub project here.
What about the mobile version?
Conclusion & Learning
We started the hackathon journey without enough members until Saturday morning. Then we found that we had little time to get to know each other and start working on the project, plus one of the members had to withdraw from the team. We understand the importance of the team being varied, we understand how team diversity brings results that enhance a solution and leverage master knowledge.
Finally, we resolved the setbacks with dialogue, with a focus on project optimization. We created a network by bringing together knowledge, new technologies, enhancing creativity and resilience, and of course, we had fun.
Participating in my first Hackathon brought me a lot of learning. The main one is the importance of having a facilitator to guide the entire process of designing and solving the challenge.
Strengths:
- Network with people from different backgrounds and maturity to solve problems.
- Opportunity to put your knowledge into practice to solve a real challenge.
- The experience of working under time pressure, and short delivery of the solution.
- The value of knowledge shared among team members.
- Feelings of pleasure, and great satisfaction in contributing to the global community and NASA.
Learnings:
- Lack of a facilitator at the start of work to guide activities, control time, and ensure productive discussions. This contributed to wasted time in the first hours of the event.
- The absence of a simple and quick process for raising problems and making decisions led to open and unstructured discussions that took the focus off the team.
- Some highlights words were chosen by the team as learning: new technologies, creativity, innovation, and resilience.
Next steps:
- Quantitative and Qualitative Research.
- Build the solution version with Augmented Reality.
- Perform usability tests with users.
- Develop Business Strategy and Metrics.
I’d like to thank you a million for reading until here! Thanks to my team for everything! Oh, I hope to see you soon at NASA!🚀
Team
Linkedin:
Heubem Cezar (UX Designer)
Jhonatan Tomimatsu(technology)
Mirelle Toth(Marketing)
Mauro Santos(Designer)
André Vinicius (Business)
