THARSIS

RIT Team Project 2018

About

Duration

Role

An interactive learning experience and environment about Mars.

15 Weeks - exhibited on April 27th, 2018

UI/UX Designer

• Website
• Outro animation

Concept

Space education stops at a young age - most high schoolers do not consider space related jobs going into higher education, as basic knowledge comes from elementary school. Passion for the science behind space is lost.

Our goal is to recreate that interest and further education through an interactive exhibit by "walking on Mars."

Meet the Team!

(Portfolio links on tharsis.cias.rit.edu)

How do we intend to create a memorable experience?

Every good book has a storyline- we want this exhibit to be memorable by following the plot line of our "mission on Mars" book.

Here's what that entails:

1. Entry- Fascinating hook to bring visitors in (later a TLCD with Martian rock compositions).

2. Intro- The fun continues with 2-3 large holograms set at eye level sight.

3. Begin your mission- Watch an introductory animation informing of main goals of the mission and what to expect.

4. Peak- Walk into an immersive area, causing the viewer to feel like they're on the surface of Mars, while seeing information about atmopshere, geography, etc.

5. Outro- An ending animation to wrap up the "mission" by informing viewer of mission success, and reiterate what they just saw on the "surface" through other animations and interaction points.

6. Continue your mission- Learn more about space and space related innovations and jobs through posters and/or slideshows.

7. Exit- Before leaving, viewers will be able to take home stickers and DIY holograms to continue the fun at home.

Process

Inspiration

Research

Composition:

• Top layer of surface is fine dust which is magnetic, due to the composition of being magnetite with titanium

• Chemically, rocks on Mars are likely to have percentages similar to listed below:                                  44% Silicates
  17.5% Iron Oxides (the red color)
  7% Aluminum
  6% Magnesium
  6 Calcium
  7% Sulfur Oxides

• Crust is 30 miles thick
• Tharsis is located on and south of the martian equator and in the western hemisphere, it is part of the border of the large shift between the northern and southern hemispheres on Mars. It is one of the large volcanic plateaus on Mars. The mass of Tharsis, the region, is approximately 1021 kg.
• There is sound that can be heard on Mars. Although the atmosphere there made up of different elements than Earth, it is still enough to allow for sound. The distance sound goes is not as far, it would be lower than what we are use to on Earth, and it would be very quiet near to a whisper.
• Olympus Mons and the Tharsis Montes are volcanoes there and some of the largest on Mars and even in the solar system, Olympus Mons being the largest.
• Olympus Mons is roughly 17 miles (27 km) high which is about 3 times the size of Mount Everest. Approximately 370 miles (600 km) wide, it is impossible to see all of the volcano while on the ground. Olympus Mons  wide enough to cover the state of New Mexico and is comparable to the size of France in width.

Sketches

In Progress

Website

Visit us at tharsis.cias.rit.edu!

With the website, it was important to engage visitors in further exploration. By providing links for DIY hologram videos, our process, further research links, and possible jobs, we hope to inspire our younger audience to be a part of the space industry. 

After our exhibit at IMAGINE, we were able to add more to our site: tharsis.cias.rit.edu

Outro

Why include an outro?

Following the outline of a good story, without a proper ending, the viewer is left with many questions and unsatisfied. Our story, immersing the viewer into the project as an explorer, needed to reiterate what they just experienced and how they can continue on afterward. Intentionally matched to the intro, consistency flows throughout the project and carries the explorer to their next destination.

Branding

After many iterations, we decided on the simple but FUI-like logo for our project. We felt this best suited our project and overall mood we were going for. With our name fully included in the logo, visitors of IMAGINE would be able to remember our project by name, spraking rememberence of the overall experience thay had.

Final Exhibit

Continue your Mission

In addition to providing resources for further research, our team explored different avenues to send the same message with a different experience. This includes Augmented Reality as well as Virtual Reality.

Final Thoughts

Strengths

This was a great project to build communication and working as a team on a finished project. We were able to venture out of our comfort zones and use projection mapping, which none of us had much experience with. The final product came out even better than expected, although we have ideas of improvement, including a more immersive space. We were ambitious and it payed off. In particular, the DIY holograms were a huge hit, and we had to print more during the exhibit. Our professor praised us by saying "This is the best takeaway idea I have seen in all 10 years"!!

On a personal level, creating the outro animation allowed me to strengthen my animation skills and create a piece I am very proud of. My teammate and I worked hard to make sure our animations were consistent, and by sharing ideas with the group, my animation was improved. I will continue to sharpen these skills learned.

Weaknesses

We were too ambitious and spent a lot of time on other ideas, which then we rushed some of the final products. We still gave it our all, but we could have added more supplementary material to our exhibit if we had more time at the end. We occassionally struggled with communication or delegation, but always managed to work together to figure it out and overcome that obstacle. 

Breanna Marshall, 2023