This project was developed during HackRPI 2019, a 24-hour hackathon held by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The objective of this project was to visualize energy consumption and call for environmental protection. When starting the program, the Python back-end gathers and processes the energy-consuming data. Then, the result is used to dynamically generate a forest map in Unreal Engine 4. The more energy the user consumes, the fewer trees will be in the forest. The process of refreshing the forest map when new data comes in is animated. In this way, the user can vividly see the number of trees "died" in the digital forest because of the increase in energy consumption, and thus encouraging the user to protect the environment by limiting the energy consumption.
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After finishing the data processing in Python and visualization in UE4, 10 hours before the deadline of this hackathon, an idea just popped into my mind at midnight. Given that the program can dynamically generate maps based on the energy consumption data, why not just make a game using the generated map? This idea ended up becoming the Ranger Mode in our program. After a map is generated using the energy consumption data, the user can enter the Ranger Mode, which spawns a user-controlled third-person shooter in the map, and the user needs to defeat all incoming enemies using the weapon provided. Obviously, the amount of trees remaining is directly related to the number of hiding areas for the user to take cover, which can further encourage the user to reduce the power consumption and protect the environment.
Here is a video of the demo: