Dynamic Learning: Exploring Astronomy through Interactive 3D scenes

Client: Personal project
Role: Product Designer / Developer
Time: 2017-2018, 2021
Team size: 2
Platforms: Built in Unity for iPhone, iPad and Mac
Users: Kids 10+

Idea

Motivated by linear and static digital learning tools used in Swedish schools, I got the urge to show how you can better make use of the digital medium. The idea was to create something more dynamic and expressive, with a higher level of interactivity, to promote learning by curious exploration. The theme I choose was astronomy, and specifically how the earth moves and how that affects our life on it.

This is an early sketch visualizing how a user can explore the scene from different perspectives.

  1. The Year camera, that shows how Earth moves around the sun.

  2. The Earth camera, that looks down at Earth from the Sun.

  3. The Location camera, that looks down at a location on Earth, following like geo stationary satellite.

Dynamic scope and usability testing

I had not seen a similar project before. I developed an interactive 3D model of the Earth and the Sun using Unity3D. I did not know where this project should end up, but being the only one working with this project I could allow myself to let the scope change dynamically as the project evolved. I had an iterative process that included user testing with middle school children which revealed startling gaps in their knowledge of astronomy. This helped me finding a good difficulty level as well as improving the interaction design.

Dynamic scope and usability testing

I had not seen a similar project before. I developed an interactive 3D model of the Earth and the Sun using Unity3D. I did not know where this project should end up, but being the only one working with this project I could allow myself to let the scope change dynamically as the project evolved. I had an iterative process that included user testing with middle school children which revealed startling gaps in their knowledge of astronomy. This helped me finding a good difficulty level as well as improving the interaction design.

Dynamic scope and usability testing

I had not seen a similar project before. I developed an interactive 3D model of the Earth and the Sun using Unity3D. I did not know where this project should end up, but being the only one working with this project I could allow myself to let the scope change dynamically as the project evolved. I had an iterative process that included user testing with middle school children which revealed startling gaps in their knowledge of astronomy. This helped me finding a good difficulty level as well as improving the interaction design.

Here, users can explore the connection between the Earth's rotation around its own axis and the time of day.