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Sanchit Sharma

Engineer

Developer

Gamer

Coder

Tuesday, March 17, 2020

SpaceVR a journey beyond.



SpaceVR was my 2019’s 2nd ambitious VR (first one) project
which initially started as Moon exploration virtual reality app  
focussing on the lunar south pole to a space exploration VR 
app with a full business plan focussed on providing affordable 
VR education to masses for Indian schools.


It all started with NASA Space Apps regionals at my 

college KIIT, I had decided to make a Moon explorable

terrain in VR because I knew only VR in all of the 

problem statements that were given, with some research 

we(me and my team-mate Rahul) found out that 
something like this was already done previously in 
Space Apps Internationals but those represented Apollo 
Mission sites and here’s the catch that I got, why not 
make a moon explorable terrain that involved India’s 
Chandrayaan mission, it was trendy at that time as it 
was about to land on September 7, this hackathon was 
on 16-17 August as far as I remember. So we just did it, 
Rahul did the research part and I just quickly implemented 
the Lunar South Pole of Moon creating landing site of 
Vikram Lander with our lovely Pragyan rover created by 
Praddyum(he was in another team though ;)), he is our 
3D modeller. In 2 hours the prototype was complete and 
in approx 2 hours more, the results were announced and 
we had Won! Just like that, I wasn’t expecting as this was 
my first Hackathon but luck was on our side though.

We qualified for Nationals of Space Apps to be held at 
Delhi and later we came to know the date, it was 18-21 
October 2019 and so we started again, the problem 
statements were out and there was no Moon problem 
statement, so we had to make again from scratch and 
this time I did some real sweating work and Rahul, 
some real research as we had to plan a journey to 
Kuiper belt that should be scientifically accurate in 2045, 
Yes! We had taken some assumptions -3 assumptions to 
be specific. Rahul planned out the journey and I did the 
implementation part, it was during the Durga Puja and so 
I had the time and I seriously used it. During the 36 hour 
hackathon, we had made the full journey that would 
start from Earth and take you to International Space Station 
which had some real no gravity effect and was exact replica 
of the real one, from ISS you are headed towards Kuiper belt 
objects namely Pluto, Makemake and Haumea, if you are 
wondering what are those weird names, they are just names 
of planets with some special behaviour, I mean absurd behaviour.
We could just tell one thing that the quality 
we had made, the graphics was at par for the mobile platform 
but still we LOST! as it lacked innovation and yes it lacked!


The hackathon was over but SpaceVR was still on and so this time 
we took it for a B-Plan in KIIT-Fest in December and lost again but 
as it is said that there is always gaining and so we now had a real 
business plan for our SpaceVR that could be presented.

We expanded the project more and this time we designed complex 
scientific phenomenons in VR, like gravitational waves, spacetime 
wells, accretion disc, gravitational phenomenon, planetary movements. 
We were making this because our app was moving forward as per our
 business plan that was to make educational content in VR, generally, 
such type of education is considered for elementary schools only, 
therefore, we decided to build complex scientific phenomenons like
above so that our app focus would be on serious potential educational 
content for senior schools that has not been created before.

We took our project to IIT Bhubaneswar this time, it was AR/VR 
conclave organised by IIT and professors from all IIT’s IIIT’s and 
IISC Banglore had come who were working in this field, it was a 
hackathon and we were judged five times. This time we Won! 
Although it was 3rd position but it was IIT, the tag that everyone wants!!!

Winning losing is always a part but what is most important is the
learning and the journey, and every time this project Won was 
when I was focussing on my learning and least expecting it, 
the process rather than the result, during our Nationals of 
space apps I was too much focused on making something 
that could make us Win this time too! but as you know I Lost! 
But a lesson learned for the lifetime that I already read somewhere, 
in Shrimad Bhagwad Geeta! -focus on karma rather than the fruit.

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The project links are: 


Business plan: ppt Link


Watch my video of making a game in 10 mins here

Computer Enthusiast and Passionate Gamer

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