NASA & OPTIMUS PRIME team up to Educate Youth

NASA has opened online voting for the agency's OPTIMUS PRIME Spin-off Award student video challenge. 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 profit of NASA's technologies.

NASA is using the union between Hasbro's TRANSFORMERS property and commercialized agency " Spinoffs" to help students know how technology developed for space and aeronautics "transforms" into what is old 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 top five submissions from each of two groups (third through fifth and sixth through eighth grades) will proceed for final judging. The voting course 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 service 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 Spin-off 2010.