.Astronomy 6 - Super Planet Crash & Apps for Astronomy Education

Transcript

1. Stefano Meschiari, UT Austin December 10th, 2014
   APPS FOR ASTRONOMY EDUCATION
   Engaging students, teachers & the general public
   through interactive astronomy apps & games.
   SUPER PLANET CRASH
   An experiment in creating a minimum-
   viable-game.
   Orbits Systemic SimTelescope
   6
   

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2. Systemic 2
   http://www.stefanom.org/systemic
   Meschiari+ ‘09, ‘10, ‘11, Meschiari+ ‘14 (in prep.)
   Full half of all downloads comes from
   students & non-academic users.
   

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3. Systemic Live
   A web app for modelling exoplanetary data, at just the
   right level for introductory graduate & undergraduate
   classes.
   http://www.stefanom.org/systemic
   has tutorials and pre-made homework.
   So responsive!
   

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4. R +
   R packages
   (Python)
   C library
   (libsystemic)
   Gnu Scientific
   Library (GSL)
   ODEX.f
   SWIFT.f
   Mercury.f
   convert C/Fortran code into JavaScript
   Open source, but can you
   dare building it?
   JAVAAAAAARGH
   HTML5/JavaScript
   C
   Fortran
   

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5. Systemic is employed in classes at Caltech, Caltech,
   UF, MIT, SJSU, Delaware, Yale, Columbia, UCSC, and
   others, reaching ∼500 students to date, and was part
   of a homework on the MOOC “The Science of the
   Solar System”
   , taken by ∼13,000 Coursera students.
   However, it can’t be the end-all of a good
   education & outreach platform: it is still too
   complicated to use, and not immediate
   enough!
   

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6. SUPER PLANET CRASH
   A “minimum viable game” about gravity.
   

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7. http://www.stefanom.org/spc
   

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8. Imgur, io9
   The Verge,
   HuffPost, VICE,
   Hacker News,
   Twitter Google Analytics, April-May 2014
   

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9. ~12,000,000 games played by ~500,000 users
   since April
   Huffington Post
   The Verge
   Hacker News, front page
   Washington Post
   Physics World
   SciAm News
   io9
   Space.com
   VICE
   The Creators Project
   & others
   

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10. Exhibit @ the
    Seattle
    Museum of
    Flight
    

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11. What do 12,000,000 clicks look like?
    [subset of 100,000]
    U/L bias
    Closer to the controls on the left-
    hand side of the window; People pay
    more attention to upper field of
    vision
    “Crosshair” bias
    Related to “oblique effect”? Empirical
    preference for cardinal directions
    Orbital spin
    

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12. 12,000,000 plays, big pulsating
    Donate button
    $70 in donations to
    McDonald Observatory
    6.4 × 10-6 dollars per game
    Can YOU guess?
    

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13. $70 in donations to
    McDonald Observatory
    6.4 × 10-6 dollars per game
    Can YOU guess?
    11,000,000 plays, big pulsating
    Donate button
    

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14. Longhorn Innovation Fund for Technology (LIFT)
    Awards seed money for pilot projects. We’re funded for
    2014-2015. I’m funded to do full-time development!
    Goal
    Develop customizable educational apps with deep
    game elements, with a high degree of scientific accuracy
    and ties to real astronomical data.
    Stefano Meschiari (UT Austin)
    Randi Ludwig (UT, UTeach)
    Joel Green (StScI)
    The SAVE-Point collaboration:
    

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15. Philosophy of the pilot project
    • A suite of apps will provide
    students at all levels with a “virtual
    astronomy lab”
    , running in their
    browser.
    No installation hassle, can run on mobile
    platforms, easily accessible anywhere.
    • Prioritize accurate physics, real
    astronomical datasets, game-level
    fun and engaging design.
    • Easy scoring/grading systems for
    instructors.
    • Complete customizability by
    instructors.
    OR
    Touch Gesture Reference Guide
    Press
    Double tap
    Tap
    Press
    and
    drag
    Drag
    Press
    and tap,
    then drag
    1 2
    Press
    and tap
    Multi-finger
    tap
    1 2
    Orbits Systemic
    Classroom scores
    

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16. Why games?
    Often the goals of entertain and
    educate can come into conflict.
    [...] There will be non-local maxima
    which are progressively less
    recognisable to you.
    - Martin Hollis
    (former Head of software at Rare; director
    of GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark)
    

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17. • People learn better by interactive engagement than
    passive listening (Hake 1998, Prather et al. 2004)
    • Watching entertaining lectures is not enough (Duncan,
    1999)
    • Lecture demos are not enough, as students often
    remember them wrong (Miller, Lasry, Chu, & Mazur, 2013)
    • People learn best by being exposed to material in
    multiple ways. E.g. in-class instruction + discussion +
    interactive games (Kress, Jewitt, Ogborn, & Charalampos,
    2006; Tulving, 1985; Vekiri, 2002)
    ...But research supports interactive
    learning & “gamification”
    

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18. Orbits
    

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21. Our projects
    Each mission in the applets have
    a specific educational goal.
    These will be quick to develop &
    easily customizable by an
    instructor.
    APPLETS
    Examples:
    • Gravity simulator (orbits)
    • Habitability
    • Super Planet Crash
    • Exposure time simulator ...
    Activities where students and
    citizen scientists can interact
    with real astronomical data. Start
    out simple, become open-
    ended.
    SYSTEMIC/DATA ANALYSIS
    Examples:
    • Systemic “On Rails”
    , using
    radial velocity and
    photometric data.
    instructor.
    SIM-TELESCOPE
    Simulate the planning
    and running of a survey,
    e.g. to discover
    exoplanets. Take care of:
    • Budget
    • Time constraints
    • Data analysis
    • ...
    

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22. Open-source, standard tools
    • Universal apps built on HTML5 + JavaScript stack that can
    run on any device with a browser.
    • Instructors, students, researchers can customize and
    transform our software.
    • Since the license will be free and open-source
    compatible, anyone will be free to fully modify the code.
    Want to take a peek? Send me an email and we’ll add you
    to the GitHub repository!
    

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23. Interactive small-scale exhibits
    A cut-down version of our
    applications could be ideal
    for small astronomy demos
    and exhibits.
    Our group just got a small
    department grant to outfit
    several floors of our
    buildings with wall-mounted
    iPads running educational
    apps.
    A lot of kids don’t know
    how to use a trackpad or a
    mouse!
    

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24. Thank you!
    Questions?
    Super Planet Crash: www.stefanom.org/spc
    Orbits: save-point.herokuapp.com
    Systemic: www.stefanom.org/systemic
    

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27. Sketch: Exoplanet Scout
    4:21 PM 100%
    Survey planning Discoveries
    Back
    • Populate a field of stars
    (e.g. the Kepler field)
    with a known, synthetic
    exoplanet population.
    • Select a portion of the
    field and start the
    challenge.
    • Design a survey:
    telescope, methods,
    schedule, budget,
    operating costs.
    • Each discovery nets
    points and money.
    Money&
    Time&
    O+o&Struve&2.1m&
    Harlan&J.&Smith&2.7m&
    Hobby&Eberly&9.2m&
    Planets&Found:&&27&
    Points:&&12,180&
    

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28. PART 2 - Conclusions
    • We are developing a suite of educational apps with a
    focus on Astronomy, funded under the LIFT program.
    • We expect to have usable activities in time for Spring
    2015. These activities will run on the web, on any modern
    computer or mobile device.
    • Post-Spring 2015, we will be able to assess the impact
    and reach of our initiative.
    • Applications are being developed under an open-source
    license and hosted on GitHub (pending UT approval).
    • We are interested in (a) implementing new or expanded
    modules from our basic set and (b) inviting others to
    produce related material and connect with us.
    

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29. Summer 2015
    • Assess educational
    outcomes;
    • Plan for future
    development and
    expansion;
    • Apply for grants!
    Timeline
    Fall 2014
    • Development &
    implementation;
    • Curriculum
    development;
    • Initial in-classroom
    testing.
    Spring 2015
    • Further development
    of more complex apps;
    • Classroom
    implementation.
    (funding started this month)
    

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