SolarSystemGO — An augmented reality based game with astronomical concepts

Mobile devices, such as smartphones or tablets, have becoming increasingly performant and affordable, and presently are available to most children and teenagers, leading to the development of a multitude of apps for these devices. In this paper we present the preliminary implementation of project SolarSystemGO, a Mobile Augmented Reality game created with the Unity3D game engine, coupled with Vuforia for the Augmented component, that runs on Android, with Astronomy (and the Solar System in particular) in mind, aimed at providing awareness of the vastness and proportionality of the Solar System objects, such as the Sun and the planets. The hardware requirements of SolarSystemGO, namely the existence of gyroscope in the mobile device, required the modification of the interaction with the Vuforia layer, in order to provide a more realistic and performant gaming experience.