BUY YOUR TOY NOW SO IT CAN BE DELIVERED BEFORE CHRISTMAS!
Order your Rosetta plush toy today so it can be delivered before Christmas. It makes a perfect Christmas present. With each plush toy a €5 donation will go to UNAWE to support the development of educational resources around the toy. Your donation will also enter you into a raffle for the chance to win the Rosetta Strato toy that flew to the stratosphere (see perks, right).
Inspiring Every Child with Rosetta
The European Space Agency's (ESA) Rosetta mission is one of the most ambitious space science missions of recent times. After a 10-year journey, it was destined for Comet 67P where it deployed a lander to the surface – making history.
We want to inspire children with the story of the mission, explaining its long journey through space and the challenges it faced along the way. In support of ESA's outreach campaign for the mission, Design & Data GmbH created animations, which due to their popularity turned into a whole cartoon series. A spin-off from the series is the Rosetta plush toy, available from the Rosetta Shop, managed by Design & Data GmbH.
The Rosetta mission took the world by storm by ESA's hugely successful outreach campaign that used social media, participatory engagement and storytelling techniques as a means to reach out to the hearts and minds of a global audience.
We want to use the plush toy to share Rosetta's "heroic" story even further by using it as an interactive teaching resource to educate school children around the world in astronomy and space sciences by training teachers and sending them one of these toys for use in the classroom. With your pledge we will send a toy to where it's needed most: underprivileged schools around the world. Design & Data GmbH has partnered with Universe Awareness (UNAWE) to ensure just that.
UNAWE's network consists of well over 1,000 astronomers, educators and communicators from 61 countries around the world. Each member country has a national programme, which coordinates its UNAWE activities and acts as a point of contact for people to find out what is happening in their local area. Its vision is to educate children aged 4-10 years (especially those from underprivileged communities) about astronomy, because it embodies a unique combination of scientific and cultural aspects. We hope to share in this with Rosetta's story.
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Universe in a Box Activity in Timor-Leste. Credit: Universe Awareness
Rosetta's Story
Launched in 2004, the European Space Agency's (ESA) Rosetta mission had a long 10-year journey to reach Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. During this time it flew past two asteroids and conducted additional scientific observations of these celestial bodies.
From March 2011 until its wake up on the 20 January 2014, the Rosetta spacecraft was put in hibernation to conserve its energy while travelling through the outer solar system. The reason was because no experience existed on Earth of operating a solar-powered spacecraft beyond Mars.
Shortly before the planned wakeup, in late 2013, Design & Data GmbH was approached by ESA with a request to create a video to accompany the mission to support its outreach campaign. One idea stuck out in particular; among the various types of videos considered was a fairytale video around the theme of sleeping beauty.
The first cartoon animation for the Rosetta mission was released shortly before Christmas on the 20 December 2013. At this stage it was still unclear if the single animation would become a series as we had to wait for a successful wakeup of the spacecraft, which very much dictated the progress in terms of communicating the next stages of the mission:
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#WakeUpRosetta – A great concern for scientists was whether or not the spacecraft would wake up as scheduled on 20th January 2014. One of the most exciting moments was when the spacecraft called home and everything was confirmed to work fine; that it survived the most distant part of its journey.
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#RosettaAreWeThereYet – On 6th August 2014, Rosetta finally rendezvoused with the comet, which was now only 100km away from the spacecraft.
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#CometLanding – The final and most ambitious part of Rosetta's mission was on 12 November when the Philae lander was released by the Rosetta spacecraft – a first in the history of space exploration.
The comet-landing event received major global publicity unseen before for a space mission in recent times. The mission proved a major success for ESA and Europe.
Rosetta and Education
A number of education resources were also developed by ESA around the Rosetta mission. We want to ensure the mission carries the great work by ESA even further by ensuring this great mission enters the classrooms of the most underprivileged.
With the experience of Universe Awareness, we aim to develop education activities around the plush toy so that teachers and educators can use the wonders of the mission to inspire and educate young children in their local area. Inquiry-based learning techniques will be used in the design of each activity, and all necessary background information included, along with a step-by-step walk through, so that teachers and educators can implement the activities regardless of their scientific background.
Rosetta Strato Mission
Together with Polish space consultancy company,
Blue Dot Solutions, we launched a Rosetta plush toy 30km altitude into the stratosphere in a high altitude balloon and returned it safely back to Earth.
We are now giving YOU the chance to win this space-faring plush toy. The toy has a special embroidered "#RosettaStrato" logo and is the only one of its kind that has flown to space.
Where will your contributions go?
All proceeds raised by this Indiegogo campaign will go to Universe Awareness (UNAWE). Those who choose to donate will support underprivileged schools around the world from UNAWE's international network.
Risks & Challenges
In our experience of developing and producing the Rosetta cartoons, we were prepared for many eventualities depending on the success of the Rosetta mission. Every project has its challenges and this is no different.
Our promise to deliver is always going to be challenged by the complexities of production scheduling, shipping between continents and more. Therefore, if unexpected issues occur in the delivery schedule, we will do our utmost to minimise the impact on our supporters and devote ourselves to providing the best experience we can.
Other Ways You Can Help
Follow this campaign on social media at #RosettaStrato, through the Design & Data website and @DesignDataGmbH
You can also contribute your donations directly to Universe Awareness on their donation page.
About Us
Design & Data GmbH is an award-winning cross-media agency specialised in science communication and outreach solutions for science domains in general, with particular interest in the space sector. It created the Rosetta cartoons for the European Space Agency (ESA) and manages the Rosetta Shop on its behalf.
Universe Awareness (UNAWE) is endorsed by UNESCO and the International Astronomical Union (IAU) and it is now an integral part of the
IAU Strategic Plan 2010–2020, which is called Astronomy for the Developing World. This is an ambitious blueprint that aims to use astronomy to foster education and provide skills and competencies in science and technology throughout the world, particularly in developing countries.
