Solar System 3D
Interactive, gamified 3D solar system in your browser
3 followers
Interactive, gamified 3D solar system in your browser
3 followers
Solar System 3D is a high-performance, web-based astronomical simulation designed to bridge the gap between static textbooks and immersive learning. Developed as a Progressive Web App (PWA), it combines real-world orbital physics with cinematic 3D graphics to provide an accessible STEM tool for students of all ages.
This is so fun! Do the quizzes adapt to what you've already explored, or are they the same for everyone?
Hi @daniel_rachlin !
I truly appreciate the upvote and the feedback! It’s great to hear you’re having fun exploring the system. 🚀
Currently, the Cosmic Quiz pulls from a randomized master pool of 25 questions (covering the Sun, all planets, and our new Moons Expansion). This means the challenge is consistent for everyone at the moment so that the "Universe Master" rank is earned on a level playing field!
However, you’ve hit on exactly what we’re discussing for our next update. We are currently evaluating two paths: either making the quizzes adaptive to your specific Discovery Stars (⭐) or locking more difficult question sets behind the higher ranks like Galactic Commander.
Your feedback helps us decide which feature to prioritize on our roadmap!
🛡️ A Quick Note on Security & Privacy for Solar System 3D
Hey everyone! Security is usually an afterthought for side projects, but since our app is built heavily for kids and classrooms, I wanted to share a quick deep dive into our security architecture.
Here is how we locked down the app before launch:
The "Zero-Backend" Fortress: Our greatest security feature is the architecture itself. By relying entirely on local processing with no databases and no user accounts, there is literally zero data to breach. This makes us inherently immune to SQL injections and perfectly compliant with strict COPPA and GDPR privacy laws.
XSS Prevention: To prevent DOM-based Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) when users enter their custom Commander names, our UI strictly uses .innerText instead of .innerHTML. The browser automatically sanitizes the input, ensuring no malicious code can execute.
Supply Chain Security: All of our external libraries (Three.js, OrbitControls, Confetti) are locked down with Subresource Integrity (SRI) hashes (integrity="..."). If a CDN is ever compromised, the browser will instantly refuse to load the altered code.
🔒 The Pre-Launch Polish (CSP): Just before hitting the launch button, we added a strict Content Security Policy (CSP) tag to the app's <head>. It explicitly whitelists only our required CDNs and privacy-first analytics, killing any rogue browser extensions or malware attempting to inject ads or trackers into the simulation.
⚠️ Our One "Vulnerability" (And why we kept it!) Because our gamification engine relies entirely on localStorage, any tech-savvy 12-year-old can open Chrome DevTools, edit their solar_xp key, and instantly crown themselves a "Universe Master."
In a competitive multiplayer game, this is a fatal flaw. But in a single-player educational web app? We think it's a feature. If a student figures out how to use DevTools to hack their local storage to win our game, they are actively learning web development! Consider it an unintentional "hacker track." 😉
I'd love to hear from other web devs and EdTech creators today—what do you think of this zero-backend approach?
V4.0.0 is now LIVE!!
👩🏫 v4.0.0 (The Educator Dashboard & Infrastructure Update)
Educator & Parent Dashboard: Launched a dedicated control panel (dashboard.html) allowing adults to generate "Custom Mission Links." These URLs lock the simulator's trivia engine to specific topics (e.g., Gas Giants only) without requiring any backend database or login codes.
Dynamic 3D Scene Filtering: When a custom mission link is active, the Three.js engine dynamically hides all non-relevant celestial bodies and orbital paths, ensuring students remain completely focused on the day's lesson.
Smartboard Mode: Added a cinematic presentation mode for classrooms that automatically bypasses the onboarding screen. It hides gamification distractions, supersizes the typography, and activates giant Left/Right presentation clickers so teachers can effortlessly guide the 3D camera from a smartboard or projector.
Master Quiz Pool Architecture: Rewrote the trivia engine from static arrays into an infinitely scalable, tag-based masterQuizPool, increasing the question bank to 30 unique prompts and allowing dynamic filtering on the fly.
Cloudflare Pages Migration: Completely decoupled hosting from GitHub Pages. Migrated the entire application to Cloudflare Pages to utilize their global edge network, securing infinitely scalable bandwidth and automatic Preview Deployments (Staging Environments) for future branch updates.