Current Student Collaborations Participants
View a list of the students, faculty, staff, and mentors currently involved in Psyche Student Collaborations.
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Psyche Inspired
Mission Psyche: Character Designs
Samantha Manley
January 7th, 2026
Major: Illustration
Genre/Medium: Digital
About the work:
Just as ancient cartographers filled the uncharted edges of their seafaring maps with drawings of sea monsters and dragons, modern designers of vehicles traveling to other planets confront a legion of hazards, both imagined and real” (How to Land on an Alien World, Lorenz). This one line inspired the idea for my Psyche mission video game, which would combine fantasy cartographers with the science behind the Psyche mission. Aiming to integrate STEM concepts with games to help educate a broader audience regarding NASA’s research. The game would have you play as a member of an astro-cartography team whose recent mission is to map their journey to Psyche as well as the surface of the asteroid itself. Along the the player would learn about the mission through field studies as well as collectible research note pages. Read more…
Psyche Inspired Overview
Psyche Inspired is a program that brings undergraduate students from any discipline or major together to share the excitement, innovation, and scientific and engineering content of NASA’s Psyche mission with the public in new ways through artistic and creative works. These works are posted in the gallery above and highlighted on X, Facebook, and Instagram. View the full resolution images in the image gallery. This year’s Psyche Inspired cohort is known as the Platinum Class.
Psyche Inspired was piloted at ASU during the 2017-2018 academic year. The following academic year, Psyche Inspired expanded nationally! The works from each Psyche Inspired cohort are collected in individual downloadable books that tell the story of Psyche through musical scores, sculptures, painting, 3-D models, photography, acrylic art, needlepoint, stop-motion films, mixed media, and more.
Click here to view all the Psyche Inspired books
Take a look at our comprehensive map that shows how the Psyche Inspired program has grown over the years!
