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  Flashline Mars Arctic User Station

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  Reglan Iron Mine

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  Cruise Ship (Emergency)

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ICE AGE OF PROGRESS

Shipping lanes through the mineral-rich North Pole are complicated, yet vital. We've decided to build a training simulation that gamifies this planning process to make this important area of exploration exciting to everyone, while still being valuable practice for senior officials!

How we built it

This proof-of-concept was developed using the popular game engine GoDot because it allowed the freedom to build the simulation we wanted to build. We researched the ships, mines, and research stations currently available to Canada for Arctic Exploration to ensure our simulation was as accurate as possible.

We recreated a map of the Canadian Arctic, complete with custom pixel art of notable landmarks such as the Flashline research center and the Glencore Raglen nickel mine. We built boats modeled after real Canadian ships that have sailed the arctic that are able to efficiently pathfinder the rivers to reach these landmarks, and either bring materials in for research or remove precious materials from mining operations. To showcase the challenges naturally present to the arctic, we built randomly timed weather patterns to impede the ships. The goal of the simulation is to best supply the most bases with limited ships, while staying conscious of your ship's rapidly dwindling fuel. After one simulated year, our program will also visualize how well you met certain metrics, such as how much fuel you used and how many resources you exported.

Challenges we ran into

We ran into many difficulties trying to use the many built-in functions of GoDot. Additionally, accurate data for measurement of arctic vessels was often difficult to find and had to be reverse-engineered or estimated.

What we learned

We gained not only experience using GoDot and its related software, but a much better appreciation of how complicated profiting from resources on the North Pole can be. We learnt about just how much potential it has for exploration, and gained a real understanding of how creative technical solution can help advance even the most remote of fields.

What's next for ICE AGE OF PROGRESS?

We hope to use the analysis provided at the end of a simulated "year" (specifically the ratio of resources exported to fuel spent) to build a Game Engine that learns to optimize, and eventually finds extremely efficient routes and strategies that could be used in real-world explorations.

Broken ship: find the broken ship (subclass of ports) repair it and increase number of rescues metric

Heavy Storm: 45% fuel consumption, loses some cargo

Typhoon (Moving Type): ship comes to a halt, loses some cargo

Built With

• godot
• python