The Great Space Race

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  Choose Your Path

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  US Response to Sputnik Minigame

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  Soviet Union Sputnik Launch Minigame

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  Space Exploration Backstory

Inspiration

Our inspiration for the project was the need for highlighting and educating others on the past to make connections with our present and how it may affect us in the future. We wanted to create an interactive learning experience for users to learn more about historical events with geographical and political contexts to solidify learning.

What it does

The Great Space Race introduces the user to the challenge, and allows the user to choose a story mode. The player will lead either the United States team or the USSR team to develop a rocket to launch into space, all while maintaining objective historical accuracy to educate the players. Upon the completion of the built-in mini games, the player will gain progress and collect artifacts to unlock historical facts with an accurate timeline of the events corresponding to the Space Race in the 1950s-1960s.

How we built it

This game was solely built in Java. We defined numerous classes to create re-usable code for the gameplay and pop-up windows as the user progresses through the levels and challenges in the game. The images used were obtained from Google Images, and the historical information was gathered through numerous sources, like Wikipedia and the Smithsonian.

Challenges we ran into

Our biggest challenges were trying to come up with a way to implement the historical aspect directly into the gameplay to keep the player engaged. Additionally, creating the skeleton of the game in Java with our short time frame proved to be a demanding task. We overcame these challenges with thorough testing of possible Java code implementations of our game, and using our technical skills and abilities to gauge our limitations for the game.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're proud of creating of creating a working prototype of such a challenging idea in a short period of time.

What we learned

We learned that the best way to learn any concept is to make the process stimulating and engaging. That is why we chose to create such a game to help with education to connect the past, present, and future together.

What's next for The Great Space Race

In the future, we plan on further developing the graphics and the storyline of the game. We want to add a more detailed storyline with more historical context to give the player more of an understanding of the way wars and politics affect our scientific and technological advancements. It is important to learn about the patterns in history to see how it impacts us in the future. We also plan on improving bugs throughout the development period.

Built With

• java