SpaceGame

Inspiration:

We were inspired by the prompt and wanted to find something clever to do with space.

What it does

Tracks the planets (and Pluto) in real time and positions user at some place around the sun. User's goal is to choose a planet that they can reach with minimal fuel. Only one planet is possible to reach for any given attempt. The user will either miss the planet or make it to the correct planet.

How we built it

Using Java with a heavy reliance on Javafx, SceneBuilder, and Apache Net Beans, we track and display the locations of each planet (and Pluto) in relation to the sun. We choose a random planet and velocity that will be reached with the minimal amount of fuel left in the ship. From there, the angle needed to reach that planet will be calculated. The angle, velocity, and initial positions of the planets are given to the user, who will then guess which planet to travel to before they plummet into the sun.

Challenges we ran into

Settings up Apache Net Beans, approximating orbits of planets and using reasonably acceptable physics were our initial problems. Setting up a coordinate plane in which the planets would be displayed was most difficult in our later phase development.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Learning basic user interfaces, which we had no experience with before. Also, being able to reasonably approximate the actual location of each planet is something we are quite proud of doing.