Ladies and gentlegeeks, gather around, because today is a special day. Down Texas way — specifically at the NI Week conference in Austin — a number of very cool companies, and one geeky blog, are pleased to announce an exciting challenge for geeks and geeklets.
The X Prize Foundation, Google, Lego Systems, National Instruments and Wired’s GeekDad are sponsoring “MoonBots: A Google Lunar X Prize, Lego, Mindstorms Challenge.” The 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.
This is going to be one amazing contest, and GeekDad is honored to be included on the team. Details about the application process and the rules are forthcoming, but start thinking about pulling together your own team now. There is a wesbite at MoonBots.org (just a static page, for now), a Facebook group, and even a Twitter account to follow (which may be staffed by GeekDads from time to time), so start making the connections now and stay tuned as the information rolls out.
