This year dates the time when the MESA project held the Scratch-it up competition during MESA day for the second time. Although due to the circumstances which we all know as COVID – 19 prevented the competition from being held in CSU-LA ‘ s campus, the rules were adapted to the current situation.
General Rules
The judging requirements were different this year, which included the fact that your team could have one person, and that the game had to follow one of the themes provided, or solve the problem they address. They included:
- Advanced personalized learning
- Make solar energy economical
- Enhance virtual reality
- Reverse-Engineer the brain
- Engineer better medicines
- Advance health informatics
- Restore and improve urban infrastructure
- Secure cyberspace
- Provide access to clean water
- Provide energy from fusion
- Prevent nuclear terror
- Manage the nitrogen cycle
- Develop carbon sequential methods
- Engineer the tools of scientific discovery
The final theme that was decided on was secure cyberspace, which provided more room for different varieties of gameplay. The game was titled “Firewall Simulator” which would later change to just “Firewall”.
Gameplay
The gameplay consists of the player taking the role of the firewall by filtering data packages which can be distributed to different devices connected to the network. It would get progressively faster as the two minute timer runs out. You win the game if all the data packages are given to the correct ports and all hacker attacks were blocked.
Under an attack 
destroying the virus 
Gameplay