Planets in a Room - Project Description
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What is it?


The magic of the sky in your room

Planets in a Room

What is Planets in a room?

Planets in a room is a DIY low-cost kit you can use to build a small (20 cm to 40cm diameter or more) spherical projector to easily see and show the planets in any room. Using it in Planetarium-mode under a dome surface, Planets in a room is also a small planetarium projector you can use to show the sky and the stars above your head.

Planets in a room is also a community of people who love space and science and who choose to build and use this system to make their passion grow, involving new generations.

If you are a teacher you can use Planets in a room to show in your classroom what happens on Earth and on other planets and whenever your lessons require a spherical surface. But most of all, to involve your students with an innovative hands on tool. You can also use it if you are an amateur astronomer or run a small Museum, to organize astronomical events for the public and to produce interactive exhibits. But also if you are a researcher and need to easily see your data on a spherical surface.

Planets in a room was funded by Europlanet with the Europlanet Outreach Funding Scheme and was among the 19 Reccomended Projects selected in 2018 by IAU’s Office of Astronomy for Development.

How does it work?

Instructions

Planets in a room is a kit developed with 3D printing technology and uses a plastic sphere recycled from a lamp light, for a low impact design (1). The kit needs to be assembled with parts you will need to buy in a hardware store, and two commercial camera lenses (2). It is to be used with an external standard PC (3) and a projector (4) that are not supposed to be for the sole use in the system.

To use Planets in a room you will also need access to the Provate Section of this website, where you will find the online software to calibrate your system and the scientific contents to be easily displayed with your system. You will also find all the needed tools and support to develop your original contents for the system.

Planets in a room is a small object when in use and once it has been built, assembled and calibrated for the first use, it can be easily disassembled and moved.

This website is also home to a community of Planets in a room lovers who will share online new contents but also experiences and new ideas.

 

Proiezione sfericaSpherical projection, both on a small sphere and under a planetarium dome, is a great tool to entertain with astronomy and space. But also to teach science, geology, geography, history, math, art…. and who knows what else.

There are many existing commercial or open source systems based on this simple but revolutionary idea.
Untill now, these products usually required high budgets, couldnt be transported easily and sometimes, were difficult to use for non-trained users. Whatsmore, usually the final users didn’t play any part in the building and setting phases, nor in the production of educational contents. And as you will learn, this is part of the added value and of the fun.

For these reasons, we decided to develop a portable and cheap spherical projector that can easily be built and used with clear and customizable educational content by anyone, not just experts.

Planets in a Room needs YOU!
If you are a Planets in a Room user, please let us know about your activities and we will be happy to share them with the community in this page.

Join the Community