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    C.A.S.A

    Comunicación, Actualidad, Simulación y Autonomía

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    What is C.A.S.A?

    C.A.S.A is an application which is formed by four sections: Comunicación (Communication), Autonomía (Autonomy), Simulación (Simulation), Actualidad (News).

    This app is specially designed for astronauts who are on a long journey, although some sections of our app can also be useful on Earth, for people who work away from home and can not physically interact with their family and friends. The sections of Communication and News, are meant to situations closer to the Earth, as in the space stations. And the Autonomy and Simulation sections, since they do not need a continuous internet connection, can be used over longer distances, such as in the Solar System.

  • Comunicación & Autonomía

    (Communication)(Autonomy)

     

    Comunicación (Communication)

    In order that astronauts do not have the monotony of always talking to the same people, we have incorporated a chat where astronauts can get in touch with other astronauts, cosmonauts and taikonauts from different space stations. In addition, they have the possibility to draw so that several people can interact at the same time. In this way we also offer a recreational space in which astronauts can play games like the three in a row or hanging, among others. This section also has a professional purpose since they can make and share photos to make schemes and plans.

    Autonomía (Autonomy)

    The app has a personal assistant, such as Siri or Cortana, called Laika. Its function is to advise and help the crew in specific cases, for example, when losing contact with the controllers of the Earth mission. Laika is programmed with some questions from the simplest to the most technical to help the astronaut. In addition, Laika has various functions, such as turning a light on or off and opening or closing a door. Besides, we have recreated a scale-programmed spacecraft with an Arduino board that is connected via Bluetooth to the app so you can see all the functions in real time, live.

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    Model

    In order to give an easier view of what this part of the app would be, we have built and programmed the model of a ship with some of the functions offered in this section.

    Signals are sent via Bluetooth to the Arduino board from the app to perform actions such as turning lights on and off or opening and closing gates.

    For this, we have used an Arduino board, a protoboard, two servomotors, a loudspeaker, various leds, a Bluetooth module H-06 and the necessary resistors.

  • Simulación y Actualidad

    (Simulation)(News)

    Simulación (Simulation)

    We have also created a virtual reality section so that the astronaut can enjoy the places he likes the most from Earth in moments of longing or that he needs to feel nearer to his planet .It consists of a set of videos recorded with 360º cameras in different spaces from the Earth, among which you can choose the ones that you want. We have incorporated into the ship a machine called Virtuix Omni, with which the astronaut can walk, run and even stand still if he feels like it. He can play sports while enjoying the scenary that appeals to him. We also want to add the possibility of making that the landscape in which the astronaut is immersed advance at the same time that he walks on the platform. Due the Appinventor platform offers us limited possibilities and that this application is in a prototype phase, this function has still to be implemented.

    Actualidad (News)

    As long as the astronauts are not uninformed about news or events on Earth, in the app we have included a news section where they will have different newspapers and magazines in different languages. This section will have all the most important newspapers and magazines in the world. The astronaut will have at his disposal a list where he can choose the diary of the theme that he likes the most in his native language or whoever he wants.

  • How does it work?

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    Making an app like C.A.S.A requires a good level of programming, since it has a wide variety of complex elements and procedures. For example, to get an interactive chat in real time we used the FirebaseDB add-on, which allows us to upload the data of each user to a database on the internet, which we download later to share it among users of the app. Regarding the Autonomy section we have used several procedures that detect what the user says, then select the keywords that the application needs to know what action it has to perform and finally execute the action that the user has requested.

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    How is the app connected?

    The functioning of the communication of the data of our app is the same as the used today on Earth. The information is sent through electromagnetic waves, the most suitable for very long distances are the radio frequency waves. In the transmitter ship there is a radio antenna with a transducer, which has the function of transforming the digital data of the app into an electromagnetic wave that is sent to the receiving ship where it is transformed into the data of the application again.

    Disadvantages

    The only drawback that may arise with this type of communication in space, is the loss of information due to the long distances traveled by the waves and density of the stellar dust.

    Advantages

    Currently, is being developed a techonlogy to send data through the use of lasers, with which the distance would not be a problem for the functions of our app, since we would reduce the information losses considerably. Once this research has been developed it will be completely applicable to our project.

  • Sources consulted and dissemination

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    Sources consulted:

    -Dolors Barea, doctor in psychology from Roseta Mauri high school.

    -Toni Soler, industrial engineer.

    -Josepa Miró, technology teacher.

    -Maria Dolors Alet, teacher in the psychological sector.

    -Adrián Garcés, electronics engineer.

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    Teams with which we have shared the project:

     

    -Socratics

    -Stanbots

    -Eclipse Lunar 

    -Fem1 

    -Roseta Explorers

    -Lego Field

     

  • What is behind this?

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    What is the FLL?

    The FIRST Lego League is a robotics competition that consists of three equally important parts:

    • The FLL values: integration, discovery, inclusion and coopertition
    • A robot competition where we have to design, build and program robots using LEGO MINDSTORMS technology to overcome a series of missions.
    • And finally, a scientific project in which we have to give a technological and innovative solution to a problem or challenge raised.
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    What have we achieved?

    We are a team composed of 8 members. The first year that we participated (with our high school) we managed to go to the International Open Championship in Bath, United Kindom, with the first prize for the Gracious Professionalism.

    This year, (the third that we participate) we managed to move to the Spain final, in Tenerife, where we participated the previous days 23 and 24 of March. We won the first prize for Teamwork, which gives us the opportunity to attend the International Open Championship in Izmir (Turkey), from May 22 to 25.

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    How did it start?

    Two years ago, we participed in the FLL with our high school in an optional subject of third of ESO. Last year, since it was not possible to continue participating in the competition with the school, we decided to do it independently. And this is the second year that we compete in this way.

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