Jan 19, 2011

Sonja Alexander Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1761 sonja r alexander@nasa gov

Rob Gutro Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md 301-286-4044 robert j gutro@nasa gov

RELEASE: 11-021

NASA INVITES PUBLIC TO VOTE ON OPTIMUS PRIME CONTEST STUDENT VIDEOS

GREENBELT, Md -- NASA has opened online voting for the agency's OPTIMUS PRIME Spinoff Award student video contest The public is invited to vote for its favorite videos, made by students in grades three through eight, developed to help educate America's youth about the benefits of NASA's technologies

NASA is using the correlation between Hasbro's TRANSFORMERS property and commercialized agency "spinoffs" to help students understand how technology developed for space and aeronautics "transforms" into what is used on Earth

More than 190 children from 31 states have submitted creative videos describing their favorite agency technology from NASA's 2009 Spinoff publication The students also documented why their video should be selected to win the NASA OPTIMUS PRIME trophy

The public can vote for its favorite OPTIMUS PRIME Spinoff Award videos at:

http://ipp gsfc nasa gov/optimus/voting php

The top five submissions from each of two groups (third through fifth and sixth through eighth grades) will advance for final judging The voting process is open until Feb 6

A panel of NASA judges will select the winners in each of the two grade categories The winning students, associated spinoff companies and NASA innovators will be announced in February

In addition to the trophy, the winners will travel to Colorado Springs, Colo , for an award ceremony during the 27th National Space Symposium on April 12

NASA intends to make this an annual competition Students can begin thinking about next year's competition by deciding which spinoffs they like best from NASA's recently-published Spinoff 2010

For more information about the NASA OPTIMUS PRIME Spinoff Award, visit:

http://ipp gsfc nasa gov/optimus

For more information about NASA spinoffs and technology transfer, visit:

http://www sti nasa gov/tto/

For more information about the 27th National Space Symposium, visit:

http://www nationalspacesymposium org/

NASA's Office of the Chief Technologist is responsible for facilitating the transfer of technology from the space program to the marketplace and the American public For more information about the Office of the Chief Technologist, visit:

http://www nasa gov/oct

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