Moon Base: A Serious Game for Education 1st Anonymous 1 2nd Anonymous 2 3rd Anonymous 3 Affiliation 1 Affiliation 2 Affiliation 3 Address 1 Address 2 Address 3 Country 1 Country 2 Country 3 e-mail 1 e-mail 2 e-mail 3 Abstract—To increase the interest of young people in the technological and scientific aspects of space research, the Eu- ropean Space Education Resources Office (ESERO) has decided to develop a set of games with space themes. Our group was selected to design and implement a game in virtual reality. In this paper, we describe the main design principles, interaction and navigation techniques, technological details, and user experience of the final game titled Moon Base. Index Terms—educational game, virtual reality, space explo- ration I. INTRODUCTION Enjoyable, funny and exciting activities significantly help users to understand and to remember a subject of interest. That is why usage of games in education is widely accepted as a great and efficient extension to traditional education processes. This approach is even accelerated in the last years when powerful smartphones and attractive devices like VR headsets become widely available for a young population. An extensive survey of the serious games in education can be found in [1]. The authors show an increasing number of Fig. 1. Moon Base: Spaceship take-off preparation. suitable games for educational purposes and their indisputably positive effect on learning. On the other hand, they also mention various issues with the integration of games into have led to the development of educational game Moon Base schools. We share their observation dealing with a certain which is described in the following text. skepticism among students, low acceptance by some teachers, and technological obstacles, however, we believe that all these II. RELATED WORK issues change in time and that most problems will soon Usefulness of applying games to increase the interest of disappear quite naturally with the increasing impact of the students and to fulfill their hunger for knowledge has been information society. shown in several papers. It covers a wide range of target users Having all these facts above in mind, the European Space 1 starting at primary school [2] up to university classes [4]. Education Resources Office (ESERO) tried to arouse the Kleinhans at al. [2] describe their complex approach con- interest of students at secondary and high schools towards sisting of classroom game (targeted to primary schools) called research in space by developing a virtual reality (VR) game. Expedition Mundus, bringing pupils to a science museum, Such a game could increase the number of highly motivated and experimental work on sandbox scale models. Although students both at universities of technology and natural sci- no computers support was included and the game was based ences. As we register a shift of students’ interest from these on paper materials including maps, cards, text with anecdotes areas of education to social and management fields in last and scientific facts, the authors were able to cover the Earth, years, the activity of ESERO is welcome especially at our the Moon, and the Mars. university with a long tradition of education in technology More technically oriented education game is described in areas. [3]. The authors created a computer game based on a real The ESERO intention and support together with our experi- Apollo lunar exploration mission. The game develops mul- ence in computer graphics, user interfaces, and virtual reality tidisciplinary activities in three phases - planning routes on 1ESERO is a project of the European Space Agency (ESA) targeted to the lunar surface, loading science equipment, driving a rover. education. Game components build on scientific data from NASA, both Fig. 2. Moon Base: the main menu offers a selection from five voyages of exploration. for digital elevation model (terrain) and 3D virtual lunar rover rocket types in the hangar (Ariane 5R, Ariane 5C, and Ariane vehicle and its controls. A usability study was performed on 5P), which are dismantled into several pieces, see Fig. 3. The a group of 30 participants between the ages of 19 and 38. goal in this scene is to try to assemble an Ariane 5 rocket and The game was positively accepted and marked as a game inform users about tow strength, weight, and amount of fuel with a power to engage youth and young adults in Science, the rocket needs to reach the cosmic space. Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) learning. This scene requires the handling of rocket parts and an easy We also appreciate the Kerbal Space Program game pre- to understand system for joining these parts together. It is also sented by Ranalli and Ritzko [4]. Students in the first year of necessary to solve the movement over a large area in all three their Engineering Design study build a rocket that could fly axes (i.e., even vertical movement). from the Earth to the Moon and return safely. The model of the Each rocket part is extended during the interaction with spaceship was motivated by Apollo 8. However, students are color balls informing the user about proper parts placing required to compute their rocket parameters and to simulate and parts compatibility. The parts are automatically snapped various flight phases like take-off, orbital trajectory movement, together if corresponding balls are close. Moreover, each and landing. As the students have to concentrate on correct rocket part is annotated by factual information. The user can computations and simulations, the game itself is not very naturally walk on the platform (it is bounded by the railing) but complicated, but students were still enthusiastic about using a for traveling on large distance or in the vertical direction, she game in education. has to use the platform control panel to transport, see Fig. 3 While the previously mentioned serious games have limited and Fig. 6. scopes, e.g., the Moon exploration in [3] or rocket construction in [4], we aimed to offer a complex view on space research Scene 2: Take-off possibilities and activities. To achieve this goal, we have The second scene retakes place at the Guyana Space Center. intentionally suppressed a priori technical knowledge required In this scenario, the user will become familiar with the launch for the game, but extended a game scope to five very different process of the Ariane 5P rocket, which begins by bringing areas to engage various users/players. the missile from the ’final assembly building’ to the launch pad, see Fig. 1. Subsequently, first phases rocket engines are III. GAME DESIGN AND PRINCIPLES launched, and the rocket takes-off the earth. The first phase The main task was to present a variety of activities that engines are discarded after reaching the space, and second are connected with space research. Each part of the game phase engines ignition occurs. should motivate players to become interested in a different The entire rocket launch process is prepared as a cinematic discipline(s). Since we know neither the users’ preferences animation; it can be freely played, skipped, played backward nor their educational background, we have decided to offer and repeated to get the eventuality to investigate the launch them a choice from five game activities/scenes (short stories process deeply. For this purpose, there are also several viewing and corresponding tasks). A selection from these choices is positions in the scene, from an outer view around launchpad, shown in Fig. 2. attached to the rocket, or from Earth orbit. The key to this Game scenes are fully independent, no achievements and scene is a media player (Fig. 1) that influence the flow of no knowledge from one scene are necessary to enter and play time in the scene in different ways. another scene. The content and the most significant features of every scene are as follows: Scene 3: Operations in Microgravity The third scene takes place in one module of the ISS Scene 1: Spaceship Construction (International Space Station) where the user can experiment The first scene takes place in a space rocket hangar (for- with barycentric balls, i.e., to study how the center of mass mally Launcher Integration Building - BIL) in Guyana Space (barycenter) is determined by geometrical properties of a center in French Guiana. There are three different Ariane bodies-system and not by the mass of individual bodies like Fig. 3. Moon Base: Construction of different Ariane rockets in a virtual hangar. A user can see information about rocket parts during an interaction. There are visible helpers for correct parts placement (colored balls). A platform control panel is visible in front of the user. it is on the Earth. This scene fully reflect ESA educational Scene 5: Moon Research Laboratory material Barycentric balls [9]. The fifth scene takes place in the laboratory inside the Moon The user will be able to assemble a system of objects Base. Rock soil samples will be tested for soil grain and from balls and sticks. The physics behavior of the body calcium content. The soil grain test is carried out using a sieve system is simulated concerning microgravity, and it orbits set of different fineness, in this case, two sieves. around a common center of mass. There are four drawers The testing procedure is as follows: a sample of the lunar with an endless count of sticks and three different balls (pool rock is weighed, the sample is then divided into three different ball, tennis ball and bowling ball). Users can freely connect coarse fractions using sieves (coarse, medium coarse and fine). balls and sticks together and explore the physical behavior of The weight ratio of the fraction to be sampled and the whole complex systems.