Gizmodo Australia » x prize

MoonBots Challenge Lets Kids Simulate Lunar X Prize Landing—With Lego

Jack Loftus — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 14:00:00 +0000

A program called MoonBots will allow children to simulate the conditions of Google’s $US30 million Lunar X Prize—get rover to the moon, snap HD pics, kick ass—but turns up the quirkiness (and the cool factor) by incorporating Lego.

Now, these inventions—all powered by the Mindstorms robotics kit—won’t actually see the barren lunar landscape up close, like their Lunar X Prize cousins. They will however see simulated terrain, and will be asked to complete similar tasks.

One task, demonstrated by Giz reader Tim, involves autonomously navigating the “Lunar surface” without bumping into moon rocks, secret aliens, or Apollo mission film sets. In Tim and his kids’ case, the “Moon” is a covered pool:

Aside from the fact that that poor little guy was probably wetting himself over being a mere inch from certain doom beneath the cover, he did pretty well. But, Tim, can you and your kid send that sucker to the moon? [YouTube, MoonBots]

X Prize’s Call for Votes in Next Big Crazy Green Idea Challenge

Jesus Diaz — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 19:40:00 +0000

The X Prize Foundation is looking for a new challenge for their next Energy and Environment prize, and they want Gizmodo readers to vote on it. The X Prize is an educational nonprofit prize institute dedicated to create radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity, like when Burt Rutan built and flew the world’s first private spaceship to win the $US10 million Ansari X Prize. To propose the challenge for the next big crazy green idea, they have selected the best three from 133 videos:

The Capacitor Challenge

The Energy Independence X PRIZE

Energy X-Prize: Reduce Home Energy Usage

[Vote now]

Google Putting $US30 Million Into X PRIZE Robotics Moon Race

Jason Chen — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 20:47:16 +0000

Google and X PRIZE are teaming up to offer $US30 million in cash rewards to companies and organisations that can land a robotic rover on the Moon and do a bunch of mission objectives. Their first prize is $US25M, second prize is $US5M, there’s an extra $US5M in bonus stuff to the losers. The challenge to engineers, physicists, space men, and aerospace moguls is to make and coordinate “orbital mechanics, remote-control robotics, and bring-your-own bandwidth” together in a cohesive unit so it doesn’t accidentally cause a rip in our Space Time continuum.

Of course, instead of that great speech that was given the first time we landed on the moon, the robot will throw up a couple 111000101, 1001010101, 010101010101, and a PREPARE TO DIE, EARTHLINGS. [Wired]