Moonbots 2011 Playfield & Mission

I was invited over to give the Techno Inventors a hand in the Phase 2 of their Moonbots 2011 competition. Below is the overall playfield.

It is actually very huge,  with 5 x 5 large lego plates as the base! The whole playfield is huge, with the walls at the back with Earth as the background was really cool. There is a landing pad which is black in colour situated at the left side of the photo.

These are 4 of these (Black & Orange) object to pickup from the field. It is called Helium-3 and worth 15 points each. Please note the 4 brick high wall ridges that the vehicle would have to traverse to get to the other side of the play field!

This is a photo taken low within the Crater Canvin. Please note that it has been filed with 2000 orange 1x1 bricks making it rather impossible for a vehicle to traverse into this crater, let alone get out of it, specially when it is surrounded with a 4 brick high ridge!!?? There are also 4 Water Ice element (White & Blue) object to collect while in here. Each is worth only 10 points. Please note the backgrouns has the red marking and some plus signs.... it is known as the Heritage Artifacts. Capturing a image of it will grant you 20 points!

Here are the breakdown of the points on the Playfield (350 points total)

• Lander Dismount (leaving the base/landing site) - [20 points]
• Discover Water Ice (pick up Blue & White objects) - [10 points x 6 units]
• Survive the Lunar Night (Stay on top of the Peak of Eternal Light for 5 second) - [30 points] 
• Discover Helium 3 (pickup up Black & Orange objects) - [15 points x 4 units]
• Capture Mission Video (video the entire run of the mission) - [20 points]
• Photography the Heritage Artifacts (video the Heritage Artifacts) - [20 points]
• Return to Base (touch the base) - [20 points]
• Return Elements to base - [x2 points of each element]
• Touch Penalty - [minus 50 points each time]

Opinion and Play difficulty of the Moonbots 2011

• Playfield is build with Lego Plates. Surface is studed making the movement of the vehicle inaccurate
• Ridge is at least 4 bricks high, make it difficult for the vehicle to traverse over it
• Crater Cravin is filled with 2000 pieces of 1x1 bricks making it almost impossible to be moving accurately within the crater. 
• Getting out of the crater would also be impossible as there is no traction on the wheels.
• As all the elements are very similar, designing only 1 arm to collect/pick up the elements is required

Overall, it is no easy mission. Compared to FLL or NRC it has its own challenges. Please note that there is only about 6 weeks time provided to complete the mission as well as the other activities as per the Moonbots requirements.

Total scoring for Phase 2 is as follows

• Blogging requirement met (5% weighting)
• Robot design proposal turned in on time and the design matches the robot construction (15% weighting)
• Creativity and technical merit of STEM Outreach project (40% weighting)
• The Science Mission Score achieved during the Live Mission Webcast (40% weighting)