October 10, 2023
If you haven’t heard about it, you are not the only one. I just found out this past week. But let me tell you a bit more about it…
This year Space Week is from the 4th until the 10th of October, and apparently, the last Space Week was celebrated with 57 total events in Croatia! Space Week in Croatia is an exciting annual event that plays an important role in raising awareness about space-related activities, encouraging scientific curiosity, and promoting Croatia’s involvement in the field of space exploration and technology. It’s a celebration of the cosmos that brings together enthusiasts, experts, and the general public alike.
How did I end up participating? Well, one of my colleagues told me about the event, by the way, I call colleagues all professionals who work in my field as employees or self-employed professionals. Antonija posted her story about the NASA Space Apps Challenge in the hope of creating a team and participating. I would lie if I said I even checked what it was about, I straight away messaged her and asked about the team so far and the event details. And lo and behold we became Designers in Space.
One thing to make clear, I am not a space or science nerd. 😄 I am just hella curious about everything and when I saw “apps” and “challenge” in one sentence I was like: Let’s see what is this about. So that’s how I joined the team and we decided to “sacrifice” our sunny October weekend and participate in this event.
How was the overall experience?
It was great, I loved every second of it. It was chaotic and challenging, but it was inspiring and fun. And I can say I got a lot out of the experience even though I went in without any expectations whatsoever. What impressed me was the amount of kids and students that participated. Also seeing the atmosphere in contemporary elementary schools in Zagreb made me wish I was a student again. The amount of cool workshops they have is insane!
How challenging was the challenge itself?
As the instructions say on the website of the hackathon, we decided to make it simple and use it as a good starting point for further development. That’s why we made a promotional video of our space tourism office called Space Surfers, a presentation and an informative brochure of our packages. I was very lucky to have such a chill team where they trusted me with the design of the brochure.
The scope, implementation method, and complexity of the tool you develop is at your discretion. Your tool could be elaborate or simple. For example, you could even develop a travel brochure that does not require an interactive website. We look forward to seeing how you solve this challenge!
Will I participate again? — Yes, 100%
What will happen with the project after the brochure? — I am thinking about putting my spin on it as a UX designer and creating a version of the website and probably a small prototype of the app and the quiz. I feel inspired now while I write this, but when and will I actually have time to do it — time will tell.
Did you know? Mars has ice caps!
Currently available for collaborations.
