Inspiration
We both have a fascination with space and our solar system, so we decided to make a app where people can view the position and velocity of planets at any point of time. We want this to be used for educational purposes as well as be able to be used for professionals to model any body in the solar system.
What it does
It takes an initial position and veloctity data from JPL's ephemeris data, and sums the graviational forces upon each planet find the net acceleration it experiences. It then integrates that to find velocity and position of each planet. You can center in on any body in the solar system, and find the relative position of the planets around it at any point of time in history and the future.
How we built it
We used Matlab to do pretty much everything. #realengineering
Challenges we ran into
We initially wanted to make a app using visual studios for Android, however, we ran into issues with the emulator running on our laptops, so we decided to switch to Matlab instead.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We're proud that we got a working and moving model of the solar system generated within the amount of time we were given. Here's another video! https://youtu.be/X0g9XZdzApY
What we learned
We learned a lot about plotting in 3D in Matlab using real time data. To get that data, we learned about how to implement mathematically integration in Matlab.
What's next for SpaceSim
We would like to implement features allowing you to add in bodies as long as you know their position and mass, and calculate where they would go in any point of time. We also want to make the UI prettier, making the planets appear as spheres with sizes relative to one another.
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