According to the Mental Health First Aider (MHFA), 25% of Earth's population experience mental health issues each year. With the health measurements established to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, humanity is experiencing life in a quarantine world. Self-isolation at this time is required and must be respected, but staying in touch with other people is also important to maintain mental health.
Our project will have an active impact in people's lives, during and after the pandemic. In an unprecedented way, the BlueMarbleApp aims to connect people worldwide and in space. Through this connection, people will be able to learn with lectures or informal discussions and explore topics such as the environment and space. In addition, users are able to interact and meet people from different backgrounds and cultures.
The BlueMarbleApp has the potential to impact everyone with access to the internet. According to the United Nations, this represents 3.9 billion people, which is about more than half of the world's population.
The app connects people through live conference rooms and also provides the possibility to connect with an astronaut in space, who will talk about the Astronomic Picture of the Day, provided by NASA’s API. This functionality will not only allow users to acquire more knowledge about the universe but also to keep company to astronauts who are isolated from society as well.
Another feature are the fixed conference rooms, which suggest a topic related to a certain region of the world with a positive environmental improvement during the isolation period, according to data from NASA's open sources. The BlueMarbleApp also has the "Covid map" page, displaying the information of every country in the battle against the coronavirus, with an option to join a chat room to discuss this reality with locals.
For future plans, the BlueMarbleApp could be used in the corporate world, counting with workshops in different sectors. Another possibility could be including the option of voluntary work, as an elder aid program in a moment when it is not possible to make visits to nursing homes.
Our team was inspired by understanding that seniors around the entire world are not being able to see their families and must be having a really difficult time being alone. We also understand that these seniors would probably have experiences and stories that they would like to tell. However, we decided to make it open for anyone who would like to share their experiences, including the possibility to chat with an astronaut in space. We believe that this application can be very useful to bring people together as well as a teaching tool.
We have decided to use NASA's open-sources data to show a positive side of social distancing in the world in order to keep people hopeful for future times, showing worldwide information about anomaly temperatures, vegetation index, NO2 emissions, and CH4 concentration in the atmosphere.
We have also taken advantage of NASA’s API, by utilizing its Astronomic Picture of the Day, which will be used as the theme for the conversation between the astronauts and people on earth. Global Imaginary Browser Services (GIBS), NASA's API map, was also used to show the "Covid map", the TrackCorona Api to track coronavirus cases worldwide and Jitsi, for the live conference rooms.
For the front end of the application, we have used HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. As our database, we have used Firebase’s real-time database.
The implementation of the application was a success, but we have faced a few challenges during this hackathon. In the beginning, we were thinking about building a platform in which its only goal was to connect people by allowing them to share some of their experiences. Even though this initial idea addressed the isolation issue, it did not incorporate a lot of data from NASA, so we struggled a bit trying to come up with clever ways of how to incorporate NASA’s data in our app. However, by working together we overcame this issue and designed two new features. The possibility of connecting with an astronaut, and the fixed conferences. The last one contains fixed points in the map, with a brief analysis of interesting environmental facts that may have been a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, which were observed by utilizing NASA’s Earth Science data.
Social interactions play a very important role in our routine. Thus, it’s through the implementation of these interactions with others that we develop the social skills necessary for the healthy growth of any human being. We understand the importance of the human connection, that is why The BlueMarbleApp has the mission to help combat self isolation with the opportunity to share experiences, provide free educational content and connect the universe.
Link to the fully functional platform: https://bluemarbleapp.us