We designed a lunar base for robot explorers (and humans) at our team meeting today.

We also designed on paper our Ultimate Lunar Landscape draft for our MoonBots entry.  Coach showed us the basic rule requirements.      We want our entry to reflect real world planned missions so we reviewed mission in the Google Lunar X Prize.   Checked out Team Astrobotics plans (our sponsor is a fan of Dr Red Whittaker’s robotic wonders) .     Sponsor recommended checking our NASA JPL site for ideas too.  Also brainstormed about some challenge tasks for a robot game based on the moon so our planned landscape can support. Coach reminded us that we don’t need much info on mission or mission elements until Phase II.   Just need enough info to plan a board that gives us challenge opportunities.

If our missions reflect NASA and other nations real planned or executed missions this would help us educate other kids.    We need cool but doable missions for wow factor in Phase II.

Now that our scouts are back from camp and vacation, we are switching focus of team meetings to robotics and astronomy.  Our next Lego NXT Mindstorms based competition is MoonBots.  Phase I entry is due July 15, 2012.