SOL977: Ingenious Revival, a Martian Simulation Game for STEM Engagement and Space Education

The paper presents SOL977: Ingenious Revival, a simulation-based game built in Unity and Blender that places players in the role of a field technician tasked with replacing a damaged rotor blade on NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter, a scenario inspired by the rotor damage the vehicle sustained in January 2024. The game uses high-resolution Digital Terrain Models of Mars and scanned models of Mars-origin meteorites to build its environment, and it requires players to follow authentic repair procedures in a fixed order, using correct tools and receiving feedback that supports trial-and-error learning. The authors frame the project as an application of situated cognition, cognitive apprenticeship, problem-based learning and experiential learning theory, arguing that realistic workflows can bridge theoretical STEM knowledge and hands-on practice.

The design section describes a mission loop of objective-setting, consulting an in-game repair manual, component replacement and diagnostic verification through a rover communication interface. Interaction relies on first-person controls and raycasting, with parts locking into place only when installed correctly. The evaluation draws on 28 responses from 15- to 16-year-old students at a single public lyceum in Cyprus, using a bilingual questionnaire built from MEEGA+, EGameFlow and adapted SUS items. Reported results were broadly positive: usability was rated strongly, roughly 89 percent of students agreed the game helped them understand rover repairs, and most reported learning something new about engineering and space exploration. Open-ended feedback praised the prompts toward careful procedural reasoning and requested clearer onboarding, better warning cues and more content.

The authors explicitly characterize these findings as preliminary. The small, homogeneous sample, the absence of a control group or pre/post testing, and reliance on self-reported data all limit claims about learning gains. Planned future work includes a scoring system, multiplayer collaboration, broader participant recruitment including vocational students, and comparative studies that could involve physical Mars-analog repair tasks.