This is a submission for the Built with Google Gemini Writing Challenge
What if tracking near-Earth asteroids was less like reading a spreadsheet and more like commanding a spaceship? That was exactly the question that led to the birth of CosmoDex!🪐🚀🚀
What I built with Google Gemini
Space is fascinating, but astronomical data is usually presented as dry, intimidating pages of text or plain JSON files. I wanted to change that! I wondered: What if you could just TALK to the data instead?
So, with a clear goal in mind and a free weekend, I built CosmoDex! 🥹🚀 An interactive, highly visual dashboard that tracks Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) using real-time data from the NASA API, lets you ask questions about what you're seeing with the power of Gemini, and unlock shiny badges while you do all this. I didn't just want to create a data table, I wanted to create an experience ✨ I took heavy inspiration from sci-fi movies like Intersteller (my favorite by the way) and Gravity, using bright neon accents 🌟, deep space backgrounds 🌠, and a head-up display style aesthetic to make users feel like they're stationed in a futuristic command center 🛰️
Oh, and psst... (whispers) "Do you think I'd leave you stranded in space like that? Well, Ohhh boy," I bring it to you.
drum rolls🥁 "QUACKSTRONAUT" 🦆
Quackstronaut is your friendly (always intriguing) AI companion that gives you:
- Daily briefings on interesting facts about space!
- Information about any asteroid you are currently viewing, powered by Gemini. We can simply ask a question in our natural language, just like you would ask your friend! 🦆
And finally, to gamify it even more we have ✨Achievements!✨. Interactions on the site, such as bookmarking near-Earth objects, asking the healer for more information, etc., unlock cool achievements that are visible on your profile!
What role did Google Gemini play?
While the NASA API provided the raw numbers (speed, distance, estimated diameter), I fed the raw asteroid data into Gemini and asked it to generate dynamic, gamified threat assessments and sci-fi insights for each specific space rock. Instead of simply viewing “(2012 FU35): 0.05 AU away,” users receive immersive information about an incoming celestial body, making the data very engaging and accessible.
Demo
You can find the source code of the project here: DeeptejD/data-hackfest
what i learned
Building CosmoDex was a massive learning experience that spanned both code and design:
Design for Immersion (UI/UX): I learned that good user interface is not just about making things look "cool", but about visual hierarchy. I had to balance the intense, futuristic sci-fi aesthetic with realistic readability so that the NASA data, which was the star of the project, wasn't lost in the design.
Speaking in a video (soft skill): Gosh, I had to do 6-7 takes to get the video right and I realized that it's really hard to talk in front of the camera! But I finally did it and now I feel much more confident.
Working with GenAI: This was the first time I worked with GenAI, so my technical skills were pushed to the limit. I had to reliably pass the data obtained from NASA into an LLM (Gemini) message and analyze the response in our interface without breaking immersion. I also learned a little about prompt engineering and how to structure good prompts!
State management and asynchronous loading: Waiting for an AI to generate a story takes a few seconds. I learned a lot about handling asynchronous data flows and creating elegant loading states, like animations, to keep the user engaged while Gemini does its thing.
Gemini Google Comments
Working with Gemini was a new and really great experience. Seeing the raw data become a story was honestly cool. But like everything, it has its pros and cons...
What worked well?
- I was literally building a person t
