Back to Work: Nano Quest 2006

First Lego League (FLL) has released the information about this year's challenge and it time to get back to work! This year's challenge is called Nano Quest and it is all about exploring the world of nanotechnology. Here are some of the missions:

Individual Atom Manipulation

Mission: Move individual atoms accurately. The robot must remove at least 1 white atom from the blue surface without removing any red atoms. Counting atoms left on the surface, a count of fewer than 8 red atoms is worth no points. A count of 8 red atoms and 7 or 6 white atoms is worth 30 points. A count of 8 red atoms and 5 or fewer white atoms is worth 40 points.
My Comments: This seems do-able and not as hard as some of the other challenges as long as we think outside of the box. This is because if we find some easy way to do this that no one else does we can get quick and easy points.
Smell

Mission: Transfer molecules from the pizza toward the nose. The robot must get pizza molecules completely off the paper plate for 5 points each, and transferred to the yellow or black areas of the person’s head or neck for an additional 10 points each.

My Comments: I believe that this is one of the easier missions since you only have to move the molecules out of the pizza plate or to the person on the challenge mat.

Stain-Resistant Fabric

Mission: Test some stain-resistant fabric. The robot must deliver the dirt trap to its location mark and completely dump out the tester’s dirt dumper. The dirt trap at its mark is worth 15 points, and the dirt dumper when empty is worth 15 points. The dirt pieces are Bonus Objects, worth 5 points each in the dirt trap, and 3 points each everywhere else on the table. When removing dirt for a Bonus Loss, the referee takes stray pieces first, then pieces from the dumper, and pieces from the trap last.
My comments: I don't think this is something we should go about doing first since points will be taken away from what we did in this challenge if we touch our robot.
The above information was taken from the official First Lego League website(http://www.firstlegoleague.org/default.aspx?pid=23720)