NASA And Optimus Prime Collaborate To Educate Youth
WASHINGTON -- NASA has developed a contest to raise students' awareness of technology transfer efforts and how NASA technologies contribute to our everyday lives.NASA is collaborating with Hasbro using the correlation between the popular TRANSFORMERS brand, featuring its leader Optimus Prime, and spinoffs from NASA technologies created for aeronautics and space missions that are used here on Earth. The goal is to help students understand that NASA technology 'transforms' into things that are used daily. These 'transformed' technologies include water purifiers, medical imaging software, or fabric that protects against UV rays.
The Innovative Partnerships Program Office at NASA's Goddard Space
Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., in conjunction with NASA's Office of
Education, has designed a video contest for students from third to
eighth grade. Each student, or group of students, will submit a
three- to five-minute video on a selected NASA spinoff technology
listed in the 2009 Spinoff publication. Videos must demonstrate an
understanding of the NASA spinoff technology and the associated NASA
mission, as well as the commercial application and public benefit
associated with the "transformed" technology. Video entries are due by December 31.
The videos will be posted on the NASA YouTube channel, and the public
will be responsible for the first round of judging. The top five
submissions from each of the two grade groups (third-fifth and
sixth-eighth) will advance for final judging. A NASA panel will
select a winning entry from each group, and the students will receive
a glass Optimus Prime Spinoff Award at the Space Foundation's
National Space Symposium in 2011. The innovators of the NASA
technology highlighted in the winning videos also will receive
trophies, along with their commercial partners.
For more information, visit the Optimus Prime Spinoff Award web site:
http://ipp.gsfc.nasa.gov/optimus
For more information about NASA's Innovative Partnerships Program, visit:
http://ipp.nasa.gov
For more information about NASA's Spinoff publication, visit:
http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto
NASA's YouTube Channel is at:
http://www.youtube.com/user/NASAtelevision
Source: NASA
