We have had an interesting last couple of weeks. Although we ended the semester with our Engineering Meets Education (EME) students at the Huntsville Center for Technology (HCT), we have still managed to continue pressing forward on a few other fronts.

You may remember from an earlier blog, a few weeks ago, we were contacted by Michael Doornbos who runs evadot.com about a new contest called Moonbots 2.0. It was designed to promote STEM education and inspire kids. It is being sponsored by Legos, the folks who brought us MindStorms. The contest rules are as follows: Each team in Phase 1 must submit videos and a written proposal of what their robot looks like and why it should be funded to go to the Moon. In Phase 2, the kids have to submit their CAD designs, complete a STEM outreach effort, and complete a new lunar mission utilizing a new game board field.

Michael contacted me and said some young students in X-treme Team had picked the Rocket City Space Pioneers (RCSP) as the team to learn from and mimic. We were chosen as their pick out of the other 28 worldwide teams. RCSP would be their theme team during this huge competition. Anyway, we were honored to be able to Skype with this California-based team. These students asked some really hard questions. They were also so enthusiastic!

They asked us questions about the moon surface, testing, and why we were going to win the Google Lunar X Prize. I reciprocated with similar questions. They asked us about Moon lander/bot testing. I mentioned that we were building a low-cost moonscape and they could, too. I just threw out the idea of flour as a dusty candidate. Well, who would have ever thought they would actually go out and make their own moon landscape area? It was pretty cool with the kids standing in the flour barefoot. They were covered in Moon bread making dust. The kids sent me a video of their interview with “Tim Pickens” they called it. It was really funny. These kids are creative, smart, and funny. Check out the video: http://youtu.be/724AQIJrGro. Their website is https://sites.google.com/a/smarteducation.us/x-treme/home.

They seem like a tough team to beat, so all you other Moonbot teams had better look out for these kids. They will not cut you any slack. They asked me grown-up questions and had grown-up answers.

We sure are looking forward to the competition kid to kid. Let the hardware build begin! Gentlemen, start your Moonbots!

Check out our website at www.rocketcityspacepioneers.com.