Trine group competes in Space Apps Challenge

Trine University students and faculty once again participated in NASA's International Space Apps Challenge, held this year on Oct. 7 and 8.

The Trine teams competed at the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, where Trine served as a partner for the event.

Space Apps is held annually at locations around the world, inviting members of the public from diverse backgrounds to work together to solve important challenges related to NASA’s mission.

Titan City

Simon Elliott, a computer engineering major from Utica, Ohio, and Sean Davis, a software engineering major from Kokomo, Indiana, worked on the “Titan City, 3023” challenge. That challenge tasked participants with creating an educational game to simulate the challenges and potential solutions of exploring and inhabiting a moon on Saturn.

Elliott said he initially heard about the challenge from Andrea Mitofsky, Ph.D., professor of electrical and computer engineering.

“I thought it would be neat to try it out since we could go to an actual NASA base,” he said.

He said the Titan City challenge “gave a lot of freedom in designing a game.”

“Considering our time restraints, the game came out decent,” he said. “We originally planned for an Oregon Trail-style game, but we ended up on more of a platformer.”

Davis said the game allows players to jump and explore levels inspired by NASA photos of Titan.

“We made this game to allow young children to explore the possibilities of what it might be like to explore a whole new world like Titan, and there are characters in the game that will give the player fun facts about Titan along the way,” he said.

Ocean Gardens

Olivia Ward, a computer engineering major from Alexandria, Indiana, and Abigail DeCamp, a computer and electrical engineering major from North Vernon, Indiana, teamed with Mitofsky and Joe Thompson, laboratory manager and instructor in the Wade Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, on the “Ocean Gardens” challenge.

“I hadn’t done anything like it before and it is my last year of schooling, so I thought that it would be fun,” said DeCamp.

In the challenge, participants sought to create an interactive, easy-to-understand platform to educate users about what the ocean provides.

The group developed a card game called “Fingerling Frenzy” and a game calculator to accompany the cards.

“The game cards had playable fish from the coral triangle on them with stats and fun facts about the ocean creature,” said DeCamp, who said it was her first time working in Javascript. “I worked alongside Dr. Mitofsky on the computer scoring system.”

“I think our solution was very creative and I felt our team did a great job,” Ward said.

First held in 2012, the NASA International Space Apps Challenge serves as an innovation incubation and civic engagement program.