Major technology companies join forces to inspire the next generation of innovators, thinkers and engineers

AUSTIN, TX – NIWeek (August 5, 2009) -The X PRIZE Foundation, Google Inc., LEGO Systems, National Instruments, and Wired’s GeekDad will announce “MoonBots: A Google Lunar X PRIZE LEGO(R) MINDSTORMS(R) Challenge” today at National Instruments NIWeek 2009. The new contest will challenge small teams comprised of children and adults to design, program, and construct robots that perform simulated lunar missions similar to those required to win the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE, a private race to the Moon designed to enable commercial exploration of space while engaging the global public. To further this purpose, the X PRIZE Foundation and Google have now joined forces with three other well known technology companies to offer a competition that will stimulate learning of robotics and team building while exciting students and their families about their potential roles in the new Moon race.

“The Google Lunar X PRIZE is helping to open a new era of lunar exploration that will involve much broader participation than the first Moon race,” said William Pomerantz, Senior Director for Space Prizes at the X PRIZE Foundation. “We want students and their parents to understand that they can tackle difficult engineering problems and generate important new ideas regardless of their age or their background–and that they can have fun doing so. This contest is quite accessible for even very young children, but still demands creativity, intelligence, and hard work. It’s a perfect starting point for the next generation of rocket scientists!”

Once registration for the contest opens, teams will be asked to submit designs illustrating how they will build, program and operate their robots using LEGO MINDSTORMS robotic kits. There will be no charge to enter the contest and registration will be open to teams across the globe.

The competition will encourage the participants to use free software tools such as Google’s SketchUp, LEGO’s Digital Designer, National Instruments LabVIEW, and Google’s YouTube platform to delineate how their entry will be constructed and how their team will function. From these submissions, a select group will be chosen as finalists and provided with free LEGO components to construct a large Moonscape that will serve as the competition’s ‘playing field.’ Finalists will then construct, program and demonstrate their robots to be judged.

For more than a decade, the LEGO MINDSTORMS robotics toolkits have given children of all ages the best of both the physical and virtual world, combining LEGO bricks with state-of-the-art hardware and easy-to-use programming software. LEGO MINDSTORMS empowers users to conceive, build and program robotic inventions for both play and learning purposes. In just 30 minutes, young robot creators can build and program their first working LEGO robot.

“Thanks to the many thousands of users in the LEGO MINDSTORMS community, we have an impressive track record when it comes to amazing, imaginative robotic inventions and applications,” said Steven Canvin, Marketing Manager for LEGO MINDSTORMS. “Users have in the past decade created LEGO MINDSTORMS robots that have been into space twice, so creating the MoonBots contest together with the partners around the Google Lunar X PRIZE is a natural choice”.

The teams of children and adults around the world will be challenged to use their imagination and problem-solving skills to develop a robot for a complex mission, and we hope that their work will encourage and inspire others to explore their creativity”.

“The mission of the LEGO Group is to inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow, and we hope that the MoonBots Challenge can be part of fulfilling that mission”.

“We hope competitions like the Google Lunar X PRIZE will revolutionize space exploration, and we want everyone to be as excited about space as we are,” said Tiffany Montague, Technical Program Manager of the Google Lunar X PRIZE. “MoonBots is an important next step in this ongoing effort because it will help better our understanding of the challenges of working, and eventually living, in space. The participants in the MoonBots competition may become the future technologists and engineers that ultimately help us return the Moon – we’re looking forward to seeing their work.”

“Travel to the Moon holds a unique place in childrens’ imaginations, and using LEGO to bring our kids’ imaginations to life is one of a GeekDad’s favorite pastimes.” says Ken Denmead, Editor for the GeekDad blog at WIRED. “WIRED and its GeekDad parenting blog look forward to working with our partners on the MoonBots challenge to inspire the next generation of lunar explorers to build their dreams with one hand while they reach for the stars with the other.”

“Today’s students are tomorrow’s innovators,” said Ray Almgren, Vice President of Academic Relations at National Instruments. “National Instruments is committed to inspiring children to develop their creativity and explore the wonders of science and engineering through hands-on experiences such as the MoonBots contest. MoonBots participants will program their robots with easy-to-use, graphical software powered by National Instruments LabVIEW – the same software used by engineers and scientists around the world for innovative applications such as testing next-generation gaming systems and creating breakthrough medical devices.”

To learn more about the MoonBots competition and to find out upcoming information when to register to compete, please visit http://www.moonbots.org.

For more information about the Google Lunar X PRIZE and the teams currently registered in the competition, please visit http://www.googlelunarxprize.org. High resolution photographs, video and other team materials are available upon request.

ABOUT THE GOOGLE LUNAR X PRIZE

The $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE is an unprecedented international competition that challenges and inspires engineers and entrepreneurs from around the world to develop low-cost methods of robotic space exploration. The $30 million prize purse is segmented into a $20 million Grand Prize, a $5 million Second Prize and $5 million in bonus prizes. To win the Grand Prize, a team must successfully soft land a privately funded spacecraft on the Moon, rove on the lunar surface for a minimum of 500 meters, and transmit a specific set of video, images and data back to the Earth. The Grand Prize is $20 million until December 31st 2012; thereafter it will drop to $15 million until December 31st 2014 at which point the competition will be terminated unless extended by Google and the X PRIZE Foundation. For more information about the Google Lunar X PRIZE, please visit www.googlelunarxprize.org.

ABOUT THE X PRIZE FOUNDATION

The X PRIZE Foundation is an educational nonprofit prize institute whose mission is to create radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity. In 2004, the Foundation captured the world’s attention when the Burt Rutan-led team, backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, built and flew the world’s first private spaceship to win the $10 million Ansari X PRIZE for suborbital spaceflight. The Foundation has since launched the $10 million Archon X PRIZE for Genomics, the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE and the $10 million Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE. The Foundation, with the support of its partner, BT Global Services, is creating prizes in Space and Ocean Exploration, Life Sciences, Energy and Environment, Education and Global Development. The Foundation is widely recognized as a leader in fostering innovation through competition. For more information, please visit www.xprize.org.

ABOUT THE LEGO GROUP

The LEGO Group (www.lego.com) is a privately held, family-owned company based in Billund, Denmark. It was founded in 1932, and today, the group is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of play materials for children, employing approximately 5,600 people globally. The LEGO Group is committed to the development of children’s creative and imaginative abilities. LEGO products can be purchased in more than 130 countries.

ABOUT LEGO MINDSTORMS

In 1998, The LEGO Group spearheaded the consumer robotics category the company with the launch of the LEGO(R) MINDSTORMS(R) Robotics Invention System, that introduced children to the world of robotics, and offering the ability to create their own intelligent, interactive, autonomous LEGO robots. The LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robotics toolkits allow children of all ages to design, build, and program their own robots using LEGO building elements, customized hardware, and an easy-to-use icon-based graphical programming language.

ABOUT WIRED / CONDE NAST

Wired.com is your essential daily guide to what’s next, delivering the most original and complete take you’ll find anywhere on innovation’s impact on technology, science, business and culture. Wired.com’s award-winning news reporting, unique commentary, authoritative reviews and practical hands-on tutorials make it the go-to site for thoughtful and comprehensive coverage of innovation’s impact on all aspects of our lives. Join 14 million of the smartest readers on the planet. Wired.com is part of the Conde Nast Digital Business Group, comprised of Wired.com, Arstechnica.com, Newyorker.com, Golfdigest.com and Reddit.com.

ABOUT NATIONAL INSTRUMENTS

National Instruments (www.ni.com) is transforming the way engineers and scientists design, prototype and deploy systems for measurement, automation and embedded applications. NI empowers customers with off-the-shelf software such as NI LabVIEW and modular cost-effective hardware, and sells to a broad base of more than 30,000 different companies worldwide, with no one customer representing more than 3 percent of revenue and no one industry representing more than 15 percent of revenue. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, NI has more than 5,000 employees and direct operations in more than 40 countries. For the past 10 years, FORTUNE magazine has named NI one of the 100 best companies to work for in America. Readers can obtain investment information from the company’s investor relations department by calling (512) 683-5090, e-mailing nati@ni.com or visiting www.ni.com/nati.

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