Team Of Five 8th Graders Will Tour The Lego Factory In
Denmark
The X Prize Foundation, an educational non-profit organization
that drives innovation through incentive prizes, and Lego Group, a
manufacturer of play materials for children, on Wednesday announced
the winners of MoonBots, a global educational contest. The
competition partnered with major technology leaders including
Google, National Instruments and Wired Magazine's GeekDad blog. The
challenge for the students, ranging from ages 9 - 18, was to create
simulated lunar rovers using Lego bricks and Mindstorm components
similar to those competing for the $30 million Google Lunar X
Prize. More than 200 teams from 16 nations representing every
continent but Antarctica registered for MoonBots.
The grand winner of MoonBots was team Landroids of New Jersey, a
group of five 8th-grade neighborhood friends who participate in
various science competitions and robotics challenges. As part of
their reward, the team will travel to Lego's world headquarters in
BIllund, Denmark to tour the Lego factory and meet with company
executives. Second place was awarded to team Shadowed Craters of
California and third place was claimed by Team Moonwalk, jointly of
New Jersey and Connecticut. All three finalist teams also received
registrations and start up kits to compete in the F.I.R.S.T.
robotics competitions.
Winners were selected by a team of expert judges including X
Prize Foundation Trustees Anousheh Ansari, entrepreneur and private
astronaut and Dean Kamen, inventor, entrepreneur and founder of the
F.I.R.S.T. robotics competitions. Other judges included Master Lego
robot builder Steve Hassenplug and Jeff Kodosky, co-Founder of the
engineering firm National Instruments.
"We were overwhelmed by the achievements of the MoonBots
finalists," noted Steven Canvin, Community Manager for Lego
Mindstorms. "Watching these teams of students-plus their adult
coaches and mentors-make their Lego MindstormS robots autonomously
navigate a simulated lunar landscape built from Lego elements, we
have seen firsthand how teams of children engage complex problems
and actually find viable solutions. Putting a robot on the surface
of the Moon is a tremendous feat, and it was wonderful to give
these students a taste of what that would entail. Hopefully, this
gives them the confidence and passion move onwards to very
successful careers in science, technology, engineering, and
mathematics." The first phase of the competition required students
to conduct in-depth research about lunar exploration as well as use
Computer Assisted Design (CAD) software mock up a lunar robot. From
there, the top 20 teams advanced to the second stage where
finalists spent the summer preparing for a live "Mission Webcast,"
in which each team's robot performed a variety of tasks meant to
simulate the requirements of the Google Lunar X Prize. Each team
also completed a video essay about Lunar Exploration as well as a
video documentary about their process in the journey of learning
about the Google Lunar X Prize and STEM related lessons.
"The work these students did this summer was truly spectacular"
said William Pomerantz, Senior Director of Space Prizes for the X
Prize Foundation. "The mission very closely paralleled the work our
Google Lunar X Prize teams were doing, so we greatly enjoyed
watching those technical challenges worked out on a different
scale. The new era of lunar exploration is being built on the
contribution of people of all ages and nationalities, and it is
clear that the MoonBots participants have what it takes to make
important contributions."