NASA's dirtbot challenge

Think of it as a more dirty version of the
Grand Challenge. Just not that kind of dirty: NASA recently announced that they're sponsoring the Regolith Excavation Challenge, a competition to see who can build a really sweet dirtbot for use in future moon missions. Or as MSNBC so eloquently put it, to see who can come up with an "autonomously operated system capable of excavating simulated moon dirt, or regolith, and delivering it to a collector." Up for grabs is $250,000 in prizes to the team that builds the bot that can remove the most simulated moondirt in 30 minutes or your pizza is free.