NXT Generation, a RoboDesigners team based out of Roanoke, Virginia, is a newly formed robotics team. More than half of its team members have participated in both VEX and FIRST LEGO League.

 

Our Robodesigners teams (see www.Robodesigners.com) have competed in the Virginia/DC FLL State Championship three times, winning the Judges' Award twice. Last November, our FLL Team won the Champions’ Award and Second Place Robot Performance at regionals. In March, our VEX team won the Excellence Award at the Clean Sweep Tournament held at Liberty University.

We heard about the MoonBots challenge through a LEGO Education email and quickly jumped on the opportunity to participate in another robotics competition. The NXT Generation team, consisting of Stewart Depret-Guillaume, Andrew Norton, Maggie Depret-Guillaume, David Norton, and James Depret-Guillaume, is led by Cari Norton.

For the MoonBots Challenge, our team name is NXT Generation. The name combines several ideas that are meaningful to the team. First, the NXT Generation are the kids of today, perhaps MoonBots participants, who will most likely be traveling to the moon! Also, the next generation will need to excel in STEM studies to develop and apply technologies making moon travel possible. NXT Generation is also an obvious wordplay of the LEGO Mindstorms NXT controller. Finally, our name provides a tie in to the Star Trek franchise, encouraging the NXT Generation to “boldly go where no man has gone before!”

The NXT Generation team logo combines the team name representing kids of today, an oval representing an orbit in space, and a chevron representing advancement in space exploration.

The MoonBots challenge is exciting because of the intense programming involved and the allowance of extra motors and sensors. We are looking forward to learning more about creating websites, blogs, and movie making skills. The prizes are great too! Solving this challenge will be a great way to spend our summer!