The LEGO Digital Designer file containing our robot’s design can be found here.  Depending on your browser settings, you may need to change the file suffix to .lxf.

Important Note:  Our robot has treads that fit over the wheels shown.  We could not find the treads in the LEGO Digital Designer.

Some features of our robot:

It has a fork arm that is used to scoop up the water ice and helium 3 elements.  The fork has 4 tines to improve the odds that it will catch the elements.  It also has “beaks” at the ends of the tines to minimize the possibility that it will push the element ahead of it as it tries to scoop.

It has a large basket at the rear of the robot to hold the collected elements.  The fork arm tosses the elements over the robot into the basket.

The robot has an extended wheel in the back to help it over the ridges.  Without this wheel, the treads had trouble getting a hold of the sides of the ridges. This wheel also helps prevent the robot from falling on its backside.

The robot is symmetrically balanced. The NXT brick placement gives it a low center of gravity which keeps the robot stabilized and prevents it from tipping as it runs around the gameboard.

The robot is built entirely of LEGO elements.  We even built the camera holder out of LEGOs, so we didn’t need to use any tape or hook-and-loop for that.

Our robot has an ultrasonic sensor.  While we realize that an ultrasonic sensor wouldn’t work on the moon, we took advantage of Earth’s atmosphere and the side board panels that are present on the gameboard. The ultrasonic sensor was used to align the robot with the walls to keep it going parallel to the sides of the gameboard.

View From Space

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