The X PRIZE Lunar Rover Botball Design Challenge
Overview
During the 1960s and 1970s twelve people, several robot landers, three cars, and two mobile robots operated successfully on the Moon. But for the past 35 years, there has been little going on the Lunar surface. On September 13, 2007, the X PRIZE Foundation announced[1] a contest with prizes in the tens of millions of dollars for the first private organization to land on the Moon and operate a mobile robot that travels at least 500 meters from the landing site.[2]
Aerospace companies know how to build rockets and spacecraft — but mobile robots is a new area for most of them. That’s where Botball students can help. Your challenge is to create a conceptual design for a robot to help win this contest!
High School Division Winners | |
| 1st Place |
Nease High School ( 08-0069 ) Florida Region 
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2nd Place |
Evergreen Valley High School (08-0218) Northern California Region 
|
3rd Place |
Greater Lowell Technical High School (08-0081) Greater New England Region 
|
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Middle School Division Winners | |
| 1st Place |
Desert Robotics Team 4 (08-0083) Southern California Region 
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2nd Place |
Highlands Intermediate (08-0012) Hawaii Region 
|
3rd Place |
Whittier Middle School (08-0159) Oklahoma Region |
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The Challenge:
To win this year’s Botball Design Challenge, you need to do some work towards the Google Lunar X PRIZE.
All challenges have rules, and this one is no exception. Start with the description of Google Lunar X PRIZE. There is the grand prize challenge, and several auxiliary challenges that can be added on to it.[4] Which, if any, of the auxiliary challenges do you want to attempt?
Your entry should:
- Give a brief overview of the contest and what the rover needs to do
- Clearly state what portions of the prize your team is designing for
- Decide where on the Moon and at what time during the Lunar day (morning, noon or night) you want your rover to be landed
- Describe your rover’s design:
- How does your rover work mechanically? (give a picture)
- How is your rover controlled?
- How is your rover powered?
- What is your rover’s mass (if you give your rover’s weight, make sure you explain where the weight is measured (i.e., on the Earth, Moon, or somewhere else)
- How does your rover communicate with the Earth
- What special abilities does your rover have to accomplish the special tasks that you are trying to win?
Things to Think About
- How much energy is needed for the rover to move the distance you want it to move?
- How much energy is available on the Moon?
- How much energy does it take to talk with the Earth?
- How long does your rover need to work on the Moon?
- How far does it really need to be able to move in order to accomplish your goal?
- What kind of terrain will your rover need to handle?
- What materials will your rover be made from?
- Since it is expensive to put something heavy on the Moon, the lower the mass of your rover, the cheaper it will be to fly to the Moon. How can you make your rover lighter, or make it take the place of another part of the spacecraft, in order to save mass?
Bibliography:
- Moon 2.0 Rollout Video X PRIZE Foundation. 13 Sept 2007. <http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/lunar/competition/moon-2-0-rollout-video >
- Chang, Alicia. "Google Backs Moon Challenge." Washington Post 13 Sep 2007. 13 Sept 2007. < http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/13/AR2007091302255.html >
- X PRIZE, "9-13-07: Google Lunar X PRIZE Launch At WIRED Next Fest." X PRIZEs Public Gallery X PRIZE Foundation. 13 Sept 2007. < http://picasaweb.google.com/xprizeweb/91307GoogleLunarXPRIZELaunchAtWIREDNextFest/ >
- Google Lunar X PRIZE Competition Guidelines X PRIZE Foundation. 19 Sept 2007. < http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/lunar/competition/guidelines >