A talented student in Dayton, Tennessee could soon have her art on the Google homepage for hundreds of millions to see. Google is announcing the 53 state and territory winners in its eighth annual Doodle 4 Google competition, a contest open to K-12 students across the United States to redesign the Google logo inspired by the theme “What makes me...me”
Aidan McRorie a 3rd grader from Dayton City School in Dayton, is one of the 53 winners with her doodle, “Google Pet Rescue”, depicting an animal shelter.
Aidan’s doodle was selected from around 100,000 received this year. This was the first year that the use of non-traditional media was strongly encouraged, and about a quarter of submissions used materials like clay, paper mache, leaves and picnic tables!
To help their favorites succeed, everyone across the USA can vote for their favorite doodle from the 53 state winners. Voting will be open from February 5 to February 22 on this site: http://www.google.com/doodle4google/vote.html, and the public vote will determine the five national finalists (one in each grade group).
Google will announce these five national finalists and one of them as the national winner on March 21 — and the winner’s doodle will go live on Google.com that day.
The winning student and national finalists will travel to Mountain View, California, to meet and workshop with Google’s team of professional doodlers and see what it takes to launch a Doodle on the Google homepage. This year, the National Finalist can also nominate a teacher who has inspired them to come along on the trip. The National Winner will take home a $30,000 college scholarship and his or her school will receive a $50,000 Google for Education grant towards the establishment and improvement of a computer lab or technology program.
To see a full list of state winners and to vote online, visit: http://www.google.com/doodle4google/vote.html. If you have any questions or would like to speak with a Google representative, please send an email to press@google.com or rachel@ingramgroup.com.