An Educational Space Adventure Experience

Designed in partnership with the StarWalker Academy at the Fleischmann Planetarium.

KEY FEATURES

ASTRONAUT ID CARD

Welcome to Paragalactic! The experience starts when you first arrive at the planetarium. You are given an astronaut ID card upon arrival which can be used in various activities in the museum. The ID card has a unique QR code that ties you into an anonymous profile in our database, and a space to write your name on the top right. Your profile will start with an anonymous name like “space cadet xxxxx” (where xxxxx will be your unique cadet number). If you wish to define your own name, you can register your profile. Registering an account associates it with the QR code on your astronaut ID card and ensures that you get the fullest experience at the museum. Your name will appear in the Paragalactic experience, on the leaderboard, and in other supported museum activities. There are three different designs you get to choose from when selecting your astronaut ID at the museum for the first time, which are shown below:

COVID-19 UPDATE: the astronaut ID card is compliant with social distancing measures as the barcode scanning device is touch-less. We can read the QR code directly off your card from a distance.

PROFILE CREATION

Your profile is anonymous until you choose to register and “make it your own.” While all features still work even with an anonymous account, this will allow you to customize the experience and track your progress.

How do I register my account? Just scan the QR code on your astronaut ID with your phone using the camera app, click the button below, or by visiting museum-tracker-api.herokuapp.com. By answering three questions (your chosen username, password, and an e-mail address) you can create a profile associated with your astronaut ID card. (Update: September 9th 2020! Please note that we have not implemented SSL on the site yet, so please don’t use a sensitive password for your account until we have this issue resolved. Update: November 22nd 2020! We have restyled the website, improving the look and feel)

SPACE SIMULATION

While there are several activities supported by the platform, the flagship experience is our custom space simulator. Up to two people can experience the simulation at the same time. You and a friend climb aboard our motion simulator and are given full control of the spaceship. She is a capable vessel: with good power-to-weight ratio, scientific instruments, and even weapons. The simulation consists of 3 components:

1. Navigation of the ship between rings to a assisted hyperspace jump zone

2. A mineral collection mission where both participants must work together to collect precious minerals. This mission is the educational part of the simulation and teaches real facts about the mineral composition of asteroids

3. A combat mission where you must avoid or destroy rogue drones threatening the nearby space station

Finally, upon completion of all three missions, participants will be shown their score and awarded badges, which are uploaded to a public leader board, shown below.

BADGES & AWARD SYSTEM

April 17th, 2020 - Added 56 badges that can be won in-game for various achievements. The badges are shown above in the rightmost column of the table. Badges are earned for being accurate, using resources efficiently, dodging enemies, or silly things like doing multiple barrel rolls. There’s several movie references in here, see if you can spot them!

Your space endeavors will allow for bragging rights as your badges are displayed on the leader board alongside your score (and on your private profile). Both pilot & the gunner earn badges together so choose your partner wisely! Most badges have three tiers: a silver tier, a gold tier, finally for the elite among the elite, the platinum tier. Successive runs allow you to build up your badges until you’ve earned them all!

The artwork for these badges were made by my talented student Collin Van Babrant. Some our badges are shown below. You can click on a badge to learn more about how it is earned:

IMPROVED LIGHTING SYSTEM

New! August 10th, 2020 - Added dynamic lighting to the space station, space ship and overall environment. This new lighting, while a subtle improvement, will help set the tone and feel for the space adventure theme.

EXHIBIT TALK & LAUNCH

July 31st, 2020 - Paragalactic is finally live! Available for the museum attendees at our partner, the Flieschmann Planetarium! Talk to the museum director, Mr. Paul McFarlane for more info. You can view our presentation at the planetarium online below. Unfortunately, due to COVID we we had to do our launch remotely, but I was able to test the system with some volunteers.

CONFIGURABLE MOTION SYSTEM

August 28th, 2020 - Paragalactic’s motion profile is now fully configurable. We can now configure the g-forces and angular rotation for each experience. This means, if grandma wants a gentle and smooth ride, we can configure the system to never roll beyond 45-degrees. Or if the young ones want to churn-and-burn, we can open up the configuration to full rotations at max speed. Furthermore, we can configure different smoothing algorithms for turbulence and other movements. For more details about how this works, see my blog post on quaternion to euler conversions. It’s a step forward in our mission of creating a space experience that’s compatible with everyone’s desires.

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT

Oct 5th, 2020 - New video showcasing the Paragalactic project! This video showcases my team and our partnership.

RELATED PAPERS

We have several papers in progress:

• SEDE 2020 - Virtual Reality for Self Defense Skill Enhancement (accepted, will publish in October)

• [Journal] IEEE Human-Computer Machines - Development Aspects of a Novel Space Game

Media Mentions:

• [Web] Fake flights, real career skills - Central Michigan University (Oct 5th, 2020)

• [Newsletter] Flight Simulator Lab Creates Unique Opportunities for Students - CM-Life (Nov 17th, 2020)