Solar system research

Posted on December 8, 2015 by Jess Claxton

Before I properly came to making my website and app I wanted to research into the solar system to find out more about the planets for information that could help me with the design of my webpages and app as well as for any information that I could use for my infographic. I found some facts about the planets on this website. I thought that the facts in the drop down menu under ‘Planets and the Sun’ would be interesting to have as information on my designs. I picked to use the surface area of the planet, its’ mass, length of a day, temperature and its equatorial radius as I thought that these would be easiest to understand for a teenager/young adult to understand.

The image above is the main information that I used when making my website and app. These were the crucial parts of information that I needed to get the sizing of the planets right as well as to make sure that I bent the grid enough that it would be similar to that of real life.

I also wrote down the order that the planets go in by mass, as in the image above I wrote them down in order.

Largest mass -> smallest mass

Sun, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, Earth, Venus, Mars, Mercury, Pluto

(Although I didn’t include Pluto in the designs)

Website ideas

Posted on December 8, 2015 by Jess Claxton

As I said in my last post, my main idea is to have a version of the solar system on a grid and then to bend the grid around the planets depending on how much they affected space-time. I wanted to give the website and sciencey feel so I wanted to have a science related font for the headings as well as a science green colour for the lines of the grid. I also wanted the background to have a starry, space effect rather than just plain black to represent the solar system and space.

Firstly, I looked into finding a science based font. I did this by searching for science on dafont.com.

I felt that a lot of the fonts on that page were quite childlike which is not what I wanted for my designs as I was designing it for teenagers/young adults and felt that they would be more into something grown up. On dafont.com I found the font ‘Science Fair’. I felt that this would fit perfectly for what I was aiming for, a more grown feel but still science based.

I wanted the website to be laid out so that the solar system would have some perspective. I laid it out so that the top right hand corner would be the furthest point and the planets would be getting smaller up until the point where you couldn’t see the next planet. I decided to put three planets on the first ‘page’, where the user could then drag to move through the solar system and the rest of the planets would come into focus.

The above screenshot is my first ‘page’ of the website before I had bent the grid around the planets. When the white triangle would be hovered over, some information would appear explaining the space-time warp.

It was difficult to line up the planets so that they looked right in the perspective but also so they were the correct size compared to the ones around it. I think the above example did this quite well.

My idea

Posted on December 8, 2015 by Jess Claxton

I became stuck for ideas as I felt that I didn’t understand the theory well enough so I did a bit more research and found this page on the BBC website. I particularly found the main image very inspiring.

I liked how minimalist the image was but how it also explained the idea of the space-time warp fairly well.

I decided to look into the space-time warp and see if I could make my website around this. Although, I do not understand a huge amount of the space-time warp, I do understand that the mass of the planet has an affect on the space-time ‘grid’ and so bends it. I feel that I know enough about the subject to be able to explain it simply to teenagers/young adults, who would be my target audience.

I found this video (up until about 4:00 minutes in) on gravity and the space-time warp which really helped me understand more about how the grids bend.

I thought it would be interesting if I had the whole solar system on my webpage and bent a grid around each planet, showing much it would bend depending on the mass of the planet. To make it more interactive I thought that it might be interesting to have the user be able to drag through the solar system so they could see each planet up close.

The Theory of Relativity

Posted on December 8, 2015 by Jess Claxton

Initially I had no idea what the theory of relativity was so I researched into it. I looked for simple examples or explanations for kids to help me understand. This is a website that helped me start to grasp the idea of the theory. Although I still didn’t fully understand the theory I liked the way that this was laid out in a simple and entertaining way, and resembled a comic book strip. I felt that this was something that I might try and replicate in my own designs.

From my initial research I understood that the theory, in some way, related to space. Space is something that I am fairly interested in, and so thought that this was something that I could develop into a solid idea.