By Deepika Gopalakrishnan, Harvard University
Play helps alleviate stress, nurture creativity, and promotes collaboration – factors that are essential for maintaining mental and emotional well-being, particularly in isolated conditions [1]. Dr Gary Bevan, Chief of Aerospace Psychiatry at NASA’s Johnson Space Center once said, “Games allow for the ability to detach from the seriousness and monotony of being trapped in a potentially dangerous workplace environment. They allow crew members to engage with each other socially, free of making a mistake that could damage the space station or ruin a complex scientific experiment.” [2] Physical games have been well adapted to the space context. Board games like chess are generally tethered to a fixed point using velcro or magnet. This makes it difficult for different users to engage with the board at the same time. Roll and move mechanic-based board games that require rolling a dice and moving a pawn are yet to be adapted to the zero-gravity context. Small loose objects like pawns on the station can drift away and cause a hazard. Hence, there is a need for a zero-gravity-friendly board game that has a zero-gravity friendly dice and playing field, and adapts to various board games we play on Earth.
My proposal includes a magnetic dice encased in a transparent cylinder, with electromagnets on two ends of the cylinder. The dice free floats within the cylinder. When the electromagnets are turned on, it snaps to one end of the cylinder and the side opposite the side that is snapped shows the number ‘rolled’. The playing field is a handheld, portable, spherical object that can be passed around to different players. The playing field compromises of keys that turn on the LED behind them. Based on their chosen color for the game, they can chooses their respective color on top of the playing field. The players then traces their path on this spherical object. If they rolled a 3 on the dice, they move 3 steps by pressing 3 buttons on the playing field.