The winning teams will travel to Japan in October for an annual Team Summit in Tokyo.
By Raghavendra M
A team of Indian American kids have won the 2015 MOONBOTS Challenge XPRIZE, also named as “Google Lunar XPRIZE for Kids”.
XPRIZE and Google have selected four teams as winners in an international competition meant for kids aged 8-17 and one of them comprises kids of Indian origin.
The participating children were asked to design, create and program their own lunar rover, based on a legend or theory that inspires them about the moon.
The winning team of Indian American kids (Team GalacTECHs) was from Tustin, Calif. This team comprised of two girls and two boys ages 8-11, who imagined a future where it’s common practice for people to vacation at a resort on the moon.
The other three teams are Linked Lunas (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.), Mecaliks (Cuautitlan Izcalli, Mexico) and Moonshot (Brooklyn, N.Y. and Naples, Italy).
The winning teams will travel to Japan in October for an annual Team Summit in Tokyo.
“By inspiring and encouraging today’s youth, MOONBOTS is paving the way for the next generation of coders, innovators, space explorers and dreamers,” said Yasemin Denari Southworth, brand marketing manager at Google.
“We are proud to build both boys’ and girls’ confidence by supporting their imagination and creativity in a game of skill that’s collaborative and educational”, she added.
The competition, which began in April, attracted 235 teams from 29 countries who entered phase one by submitting a written or video entry about what inspires them about the moon.
A panel of judges selected 30 teams to qualify for phase two, each of which was provided one of three platform systems to build and program a unique simulated robotic mission based on the moon tale they submitted in phase one.
The full list of finalists can be found at moonbots.org.