MoonBots Phase 2: We Have Lift Off!

Yesterday -- Monday, June 27 -- marked the exciting kick off of Phase 2 of the MoonBots competition, a student contest where teams build and program LEGO MINDSTORMS robots to navigate a LEGO lunar surface to meet mission objectives.

Phase 2 already?! What happens now?

We're glad you asked! First of all, registration for the competition closed on June 26; in total, 75 teams from around the world submitted proposals about why their robot should be sent to the Moon and videos about a GLXP-related topic. A special judging panel now has the very daunting task of reviewing/scoring all 75 submissions and narrowing it down to the top 20 teams. With so many great teams signed up, this is no easy task!

The top 20 teams will be announced next week on July 5. Those teams will then be sent a LEGO MINDSTORMS kit to build their robot and a LEGO lunar landscape that they will assemble into the official MoonBots gameboard for the ultimate test -- a live broadcast of their timed lunar mission. A panel of judges will watch the mission broadcast, and the team with the most points will win the grand prize: a VIP trip to the grand opening of LEGOLand in Florida!  

Google Lunar X PRIZE and MoonBots

We are thrilled to hear that some of the Google Lunar X PRIZE teams are working with MoonBots teams. Here at X PRIZE we often call MoonBots "the mini GLXP" since there are so many parallels between the two competitions. We also see many ways that GLXP and MoonBots teams inspire each other -- an great example of this is a recent podcast between the Rocket City Space Pioneers and MoonBots X-Treme Team (click here to listen), or this video by the New Hartford RoboSpartans about the Part-Time Scientists:



The complete list of GLXP/MoonBots team mentorships (so far) include the following:

• Team FREDNET and Lego Aces
• Team JURBAN and Team Got Ice?
• Team Indus and Just Ducky
• Rocket City Space Pioneers and X-Treme Team
• Part-Time Scientists and New Hartford RoboSpartans

Stay tuned for updates and the announcement of finalists on July 5th. Good luck to all of the teams -- we look forward to seeing your LEGO 'bots this year!