their blog contributors, Bluetoothkiwi came up with his very first Moonbot challenge robot design.

Check out the post at www.THENXTSTEP.blogspot.com for more information.

Drop us an email if you came up with a design for the Moonbot chalenge.

ABOUT THE GOOGLE LUNAR X PRIZE

The $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE is an unprecedented international competition that challenges and inspires engineers and entrepreneurs from around the world to develop low-cost methods of robotic space exploration. The $30 million prize purse is segmented into a $20 million Grand Prize, a $5 million Second Prize and $5 million in bonus prizes. To win the Grand Prize, a team must successfully soft land a privately funded spacecraft on the Moon, rove on the lunar surface for a minimum of 500 meters, and transmit a specific set of video, images and data back to the Earth. The Grand Prize is $20 million until December 31st 2012; thereafter it will drop to $15 million until December 31st 2014 at which point the competition will be terminated unless extended by Google and the X PRIZE Foundation.

The X PRIZE Foundation, Google Inc., LEGO Systems, National Instruments, and Wired’s GeekDad will announce “MoonBots: A Google Lunar X PRIZE LEGO® MINDSTORMS® Challenge” today at National Instruments NIWeek 2009. The new contest will challenge small teams comprised of children and adults to design, program, and construct robots that perform simulated lunar missions similar to those required to win the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE, a private race to the Moon designed to enable commercial exploration of space while engaging the global public. To further this purpose, the X PRIZE Foundation and Google have now joined forces with three other well known technology companies to offer a competition that will stimulate learning of robotics and team building while exciting students and their families about their potential roles in the new Moon race.

Part of the mission of the Google Lunar X PRIZE and the X PRIZE Foundation as a whole is to get kids excited about math and science, and spark their imaginations. To further this goal, we have created education resources, fun projects, and even a video or two for students around the world to explore and enjoy.

For more information about the Google Lunar X PRIZE, please visit www.googlelunarxprize.org.

References:

TheNXTStep

Google Lunar  X Prize

Moonbot