The Bean's Pick: Doodle 4 Google, a contest for the world's budding artists

If you use Google (or are obsessed with it like me), maybe you've noticed that its logo sometimes changes depending on the current holiday or time of year. Doodle 4 Google is a competition that invites K-12 students to play around with the Google logo to create new variations on it. This year's theme if "What I Wish for the World."

Registration closes at 11:59:59 PM Pacific time on March 17, 2009 and entries are due by 11:59:59 PM Pacific time on March 31, 2009. Only teachers or school employees should register. Parents or students who are interested should contact their teacher to register them.Teachers, you'll find everything you need to get started on the Registration page.

The Doodle 4 Google competition is open to all U.S. residents between the ages of 5 and 18 who attend elementary and secondary schools (i.e. grades K-12) in the U.S. Doodles will be judged in the following brackets:

Kindergarten - Grade 3
Grade 4 - Grade 6
Grade 7 - Grade 9
Grade 10 - Grade 12

The entries from all 50 states will then be cut into 10 different regions for judging purposes. There will be up to 400 state finalists, 40 regional winners, 4 national finalists, and 1 "National Winner of Doodle 4 Google." The National Winner's doodle will 'go live' on the Google homepage for 24 hours. The National Winner will win a $15,000 college scholarship to be used at the school of their choice, a trip to the Google New York Office, a laptop computer, and a t-shirt printed with their doodle. The winner's school will also be given a $25,000 technology grant towards the establishment/improvement of a computer lab.

After finding about this contest, my favorite thing was exploring the regional winners from last year. Some of them are truly amazing! Click here to visit them, or click here to learn more about the contest.