Project Overview

This blog serves to outline the process behind our Freshmen Design Project at Drexel University. The project consists of planning, designing, and building a smartphone application. So far, our plans and ideas have changed drastically from our initial concept designs. An overview of the project will be given below. For a more in-depth understanding, you can read this blog and follow the process from the beginning.

Originally, we started off with the goal of making a fun and educational game centered around the physics of gravity in space. We wanted to make a series of levels where a player was required to adjust the properties of a planet or moon to reach a desired point on the opposite end of its orbit. In doing so, they could learn about the physics of gravity and centripetal motion while hopefully having fun in the process. Some early concept images are shown below.

This concept image shows a possible level in the game. The user would need to align the moon's orbit correctly so that it collects the star on the opposite side of the planet's orbit. On the right side of the screen there would be control buttons that the user could tap to play/pause the simulation after placing the bodies as well as a reset button that would restart the level.

This is a concept image of the screen that would show up after a level is complete. The player would be presented with their score (3 stars in this case) as well as a fun fact about astronomy. They could also choose to tap on stats to see more detailed numbers that describe the physics behind the level they just completed. 

After we began working, we found we had a number concerns about finding the balance between fun and realism. To be educational, we knew the game had to be realistic, but if we made it too realistic, we knew it wouldn’t be very fun (because of how weak the force of gravity is). Thus, a decision had to be made. We decided to head in the direction of realism and education and scrapped the game idea entirely. This is where we are now.

We’re currently working on a cross-platform application that can be used to model the physics of gravity in space. Users are presented with a sandbox-like environment where planets, moons, suns, or any other planetary bodies can be added at will. Properties of these bodies, such as mass or velocity, can then be adjusted, and the effects of those adjustments analyzed, to better understand the physics. The camera can be adjusted to zoom in and out or pan around the scene. Check out the latest posts to see where we are in the process.

The app is written in Java and utilizes the libGDX engine. A game engine like libGDX is used to put graphics in specific places on the screen and to create functionality for events such as screen taps or mouse clicks. LibGDX was chosen for this project because of its widespread documentation, large user-base, and easy cross-platform compatibility. LibGDX and its usage is explained in greater detail in the other sections of this blog.