YouTube and Lenovo, the computer manufacturer, have announced a science
contest called SpaceLab for students around the world ages 14 to 18, and
it is not quite like any other science contest. For one, the students,
who can enter individually or in teams of up to three, do not actually
have to perform any experiments.
Instead, they will make videos to pitch ideas for experiments that could be conducted in the zerogravity environs of the space station. The two winning entries will be built and flown there, and astronauts will conduct a demonstration that will be broadcast to classrooms via YouTube. "The headline idea was, 'Let's create the world's largest, coolest classroom in space,"' said Zahaan A Bharmal, director of European marketing for
Google, which owns YouTube.
For the YouTube contest, NASA has signed an agreement with Space Adventures , a company in Vienna, that is best known for arranging trips by space tourists to the space station. Space Adventures will act as a middleman to prepare the winning experiments for flight.
Bharmal came up with the idea when Google invited employees to suggest a marketing campaign. After the December 7 deadline, entries will be whittled to 60 finalists, distributed among three geographical regions.
A popular vote among You-Tube visitors will provide one-quarter of the final score. Also judging the finalists will be a panel of experts including Stephen W Hawking, the physicist and cosmologist.
Google will the fly the regional winners to a ceremony in Washington next March, where two grand prize winners will be named. Those winners will get the choice of a trip to Japan to see the launching of their experiments or a trip to Russia for seven days of cosmonaut training, although for the latter, they would need to wait until they turned 18.
Instead, they will make videos to pitch ideas for experiments that could be conducted in the zerogravity environs of the space station. The two winning entries will be built and flown there, and astronauts will conduct a demonstration that will be broadcast to classrooms via YouTube. "The headline idea was, 'Let's create the world's largest, coolest classroom in space,"' said Zahaan A Bharmal, director of European marketing for
Google, which owns YouTube.
For the YouTube contest, NASA has signed an agreement with Space Adventures , a company in Vienna, that is best known for arranging trips by space tourists to the space station. Space Adventures will act as a middleman to prepare the winning experiments for flight.
Bharmal came up with the idea when Google invited employees to suggest a marketing campaign. After the December 7 deadline, entries will be whittled to 60 finalists, distributed among three geographical regions.
A popular vote among You-Tube visitors will provide one-quarter of the final score. Also judging the finalists will be a panel of experts including Stephen W Hawking, the physicist and cosmologist.
Google will the fly the regional winners to a ceremony in Washington next March, where two grand prize winners will be named. Those winners will get the choice of a trip to Japan to see the launching of their experiments or a trip to Russia for seven days of cosmonaut training, although for the latter, they would need to wait until they turned 18.
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