30 Finalists Selected for MoonBots Competition

Stafford, VA, August 18, 2012 --(PR.com)-- Google’s XPrize Foundation, and LEGO MINDSTORMS, partnering with Dexter Industries’ has completed judging on Phase One of the 2012 MoonBots: A Google Lunar X PRIZE LEGO MINDSTORMS® Challenge. 30 finalists out of a pool of over 140 were selected. 2012 MoonBots challenges youth teams to design, program, and construct robots that perform simulated lunar missions mirroring 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. These future engineers may one day hold the key to space exploration.

The 30 finalist teams were selected out of 147 registered teams from 22 countries. In order to compete in Phase One of the contest, each team submitted a fun, scientific video about space exploration and proposed to a team of judges what their ultimate lunar landscape design plan would look like and how they would demonstrate it to their community. The 30 teams will be moved onto Phase Two where they will be provided with a LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT package, Dexter Industries’ dSolar Panels and sensors for LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT, and other resources to build their lunar robot prototype and landscape environment that will serve as the competition’s ‘playing field.’

“We are proud to support these future engineers and scientific leaders of tomorrow. The teams’ entries showed deep understanding and enthusiasm for science, math, and engineering,” said Chanda Gonzales, Google Lunar X PRIZE Education Director.

Dexter Industries will be supplying its solar power system, the dSolar, for the final 30 teams to compete with. “We’re excited to be supporting science and math education, and have enjoyed working with the Moonbots competitors,” said John Cole, President of Dexter Industries.

The Google X PRIZE Foundation and the LEGO Group partnered with WIRED magazine, FIRST® Lego League, Dexter Industries, NASA’s Lunar Science Institute, Lunabotics Mining Competition, Cleantech Open’s Night Rover Challenge, Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems, and International Observe the Moon Night, Rotacaster.

Phase Two of the contest begins on August 1 and will end on November 15 with the Grand Prize winner being announced on December 1. The Grand Prize winner will receive a trip to Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems in Hawaii to test their LEGO MINDSTORMS robot.

To learn more about the 2012 MoonBots Challenge, visit http://dexterindustries.com/moonbots.html.

For more information about the Google Lunar X PRIZE and the teams currently registered in the competition, please visit: www.googlelunarxprize.org.

For more information on Dexter Industries’ dSolar Sensor for the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT system, please visit: http://dexterindustries.com/Products-dSolar.html

The 30 finalists teams are: Anthem-A-tronics (Anthem, Arizona); Apollo 19 (Escondido, California); Atlantic MoonBots (Vila Do Porto, Portugal); Atomic Robot (Hyderabad, India); Brick Buddies Explorers (Austin, Texas); Clockwork Mania (McDonough, GA); Cyborgs in Crescent (New Delhi, India); Dash 2 the Moon (San Jose, California); DragonBots (Santiago, Chile); Electro Llamas (Beachwood, New Jersey); Fish in the Boat (Lakeville, Minnesota); Gladiators (Kayangan Heights, Malaysia); Greatest Kall (Smyrna, Georgia); HungaroBots (Sopron, Hungary); Incredibots (Columbus, Ohio); Iron Reign (Dallas, Texas); Milkybots(Santiago, Chile); Model Scout Robotics (Plano, Texas); Moon Crafters (Hollis, New Hampshire); Moon Riders (Singanallur Coimbatore, India); MoonBlazers (Sunnyvale, California); Nebulans (Alexandria, Egypt); Plan B Robotics (Irvine, California); Robotic Alliance (Eldersburg, Maryland); RTRM (Nizhny Novgorod, Russia); SMART FOX (Alexandria, Egypt); Team Starling (Ballwin, Missouri); The Penguin Men (Seattle, Washington); Titanium Springboks (Pretoria, South Africa); and X-Treme Team (Indio, California).