During the European Code Week 2021 and European Researchers' Night, which will be held between September and October, we are going to organise an online code hunting game based on astronomy and astrophysics open to participants all over the world.

The objective is to engage with people in a funny and interactive way, while disseminating information on topics related to astronomy and astrophysics, and increasing awareness for many facilities currently involved in research projects.

This activity will build on the original Code Hunting Game, an in-presence activity developed by Alessandro Bogliolo (Professor of Information Processing System at University of Urbino), and it will be very similar to the Online Code Hunting Game that INAF organised during the 2020 European Researcher Night, which only included facilities in Italy: https://play.inaf.it/en/code-hunting-game-2020/ 

The online version of the code hunting game will take place on a virtual world map. The players will learn about the state-of-the-art and the history of astronomy and astrophysics, solving a series of coding challenges proposed by a Telegram bot.

The online treasure hunt is a very powerful educational tool that combines scientific outreach, computational thinking and digital skills. It can be played in a competitive or collaborative way. Have fun, join a worldwide coding activity and easily share the results with friends and colleagues!

We would like to invite you to contribute to this virtual game.

During the game, players will discover cards/items that will contain information and relevant links about an observatory, discovery, invention or important event that is linked to the history of astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology or space science. The cards could be for example about ESO's Very Large Telescope, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, ESA's ESTEC facilities, but also smaller observatories, planetaria, museums ... landmarks, notable buildings, artwork, sundials, other ancient instruments, artefacts or records ... places where famous experiments, debates and other events took place, archaeological sites ... even the location of a place that is no longer there, the location of a future observatory that is planned but not yet built ... or any other place that is relevant to the local astronomical community. You may also add the place of birth or the research base of famous astronomers, such as for example Galileo Galilei. Every card will have a localisation element to display them in a city/place that is relevant for the content of the card. For example, the card about Galileo Galilei would be displayed in Pisa, where he was born. All text must be in English.

We need your help curating the content for these cards.

We kindly ask you to fill in this form to submit your suggestions.

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Note that we have extended our deadline until 23 April 2021.
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Please provide input where you or your organisation are based. You may suggest as many locations and historical figures as you wish (you will have to fill in the form once again for each item).

The online code hunting game will hosted on INAF's Play site (https://play.inaf.it) and on all websites that will request it (for free, of course) and will continue to be available in the future.

Once all inputs are collected, on 3 May 2021 they will be made available for translation into other languages. Translations will have to be completed by 4 June 2021. We invite anyone who is interested to translate the text in their own language to contact us in order to receive the content to be translated.

If you have any question please send us an email:
maura.sandri [at] inaf.it
claudia.mignone [at] inaf.it

PS. Please contact us directly in case your institution wishes to mirror the activity on your website and/or to become an institutional partner and feature your logo on the project webpage.