Introduction

-Frank Sinatra"Fly me to the moon
And let me play among the stars..."

Having noted that the tales spaceships 'flying to the moon' have remained more of a fond memory than a reality, Google introduced in 2007 the Google Lunar X PRIZE, an initiative put forth to encourage increased exploration and research into the topic of landing and traversing the Moon. It is a contest that offers a large cash prize of over twenty million dollars for the first private group to land a lunar rover on the Moon and complete a few tasks that include traveling 500 meters and transmitting a digital "Mooncast".

Naturally, however, such a task requires immense amounts of resources and time, something that will greatly limit the amount of participants eligible in such a contest. However, limiting the entrants to such a small group will restrict the creative flow of ideas, something vital for a revolutionary challenge such as this. As such, the Botball Robotics program is offering a supplementary competition, the Google X Prize Lunar Rover Botball Design Challenge, to encourage high school students to envision their own dream designs for a lunar rover.

In the Design Challenge, students must conceptualize a Moon rover that can qualify to meet the standards proposed by Google in the Lunar X PRIZE, as stated above. While, naturally, they cannot build such an expensive machine and test it in reality, they still are asked to do extensive research and writing, creating a website that details every last inch of the rover in both pictoral and written form. The areas of special focus include the ways in which the rover will communicate, move, and be powered, along with detailed statistics such as power usage, weight, and size.

It is a challenging task that requires students to work together efficiently in groups, dividing up tasks and taking charge in order to create a design that satisfies both the team and the requirements. Much research will need to be done, using the Internet, books, and perhaps even contacting a few people knowledgeable in the industry. The end result will be a rover that, while perhaps not fundamentally sound compared to real entries, will contain a large amount of creative and revolutionary ideas, and will carry the thoughts, hopes and dreams of the students.