space-from-home

We created two fun characters, Cosmic Carl and his sister Cosmic Candice. They are the Cosmic Kids. This web application captures a child's imagination when they gaze up at the stars and wonder who and what is up there. No one really knows what goes through their little minds, so this app enables them to express their thoughts by letting them speak a question about space. Our algorithm converts their voice prompt into a script and displays relevant Google images.

This project is solving the Earth Images From Space Station challenge.
Description
Space From Home

Use Case and data processing

The user gets to the landing page where they are greeted with copy by the cosmic kids (Cosmic Carl and Cosmic Candice). The user is prompted to ask any space question they have by either typing into the text box or speaking into the mic. If they speak into the mic, their voice prompt is converted into text and inserted into the text box. After the user clicks 'Submit', the application parses out keywords and incorporates the child's IP address to build a Google query for images from NASA and Hubbell Telescope for related images.

The next page continues the 'Space Story' dialogue drives the notion that their question was answered from space, hence, generating a connection between their untethered imagination and the reality of Space as it exists today from the ISS. Images relevant to their question are displayed. We also use the geolocation supplied by the user's IP address to query earth images of their neighborhood as seen from Space.

Technologies Used:

Ruby on Rails

Javascript

HTML 5 audio input

ruby gem Geocoder

ruby gem Alchemy and Alchemy text analysis api

Google custom search api

Android SDK

XML and virtual earth

Postgresql

Project Information

License: MIT license (MIT)

Source Code/Project URL: https://github.com/urbantumbleweed/space_from_home

Resources

Team