Is there water on the Moon? Life on Mars? For the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing, Pixeldust Labs and Challenger Center built Challenger Rover, a mobile game where players design, build and program their own planetary rovers to find out.
Real planetary rovers succeed or fail on the choices engineers make long before they touch the ground. Challenger Rover puts students in that seat. Players take on exploration missions on the surface of the Moon and Mars, using scientific tools and sensors to collect the information we need to better understand our solar system.
Designed and developed by Pixeldust Labs for Challenger Center, the edutainment app combines rover crafting with simulation. Players outfit a rover with the right equipment, program it to complete its tasks remotely, and make discoveries such as the age of the Moon, the temperature on Mars, whether there is water on the Moon, or whether there is life on Mars.
Game design for STEM education
Every simulation starts with a mission briefing, laid out as a set of instructions and rover requirements. The game UI lets the player choose a Moon- or Mars-themed mission, each asking for different data: atmospheric readings, soil samples or photographs.
Players assemble the rover from scratch with every component the mission requires: body type, wheels, scanners, power supply, drills and an array of tools and sensors. Choosing the wrong part means the mission can’t succeed.
Once the rover is customized, the mission begins with a top-down view of the Martian terrain and a programmable drop-code terminal. Players plan and stack commands to complete the mission as efficiently as possible, a hands-on introduction to coding logic.
When the commands run, the rover traverses the landscape and sets off on its journey, turning, climbing and navigating exactly as it was programmed.
The Mars terrain can be rough, and even the slightest miscalculation can thwart a mission. Power and maintenance are crucial too: players have to plan their route around recharging, just as real mission teams do.
Along the way, players learn about different equipment, tools and deployments and how they are used on real missions, from drilling soil samples to scanning the surface. Their discoveries help unlock the secrets of our closest astronomical neighbors and pave the way for further exploration.
Screens from Challenger Rover
