International science competition
YouTube Space Lab
was a 2011?2012 international science competition launched by
YouTube
and
Lenovo
, in cooperation with
NASA
,
European Space Agency
(ESA), and the
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
(JAXA). Founded by
Zahaan Bharmal
of Google, the competition challenged teenagers from ages 14?18 to design an experiment to be performed on the
International Space Station
. The global winners were Amr Mohamed from
Alexandria
,
Egypt
, and Dorothy Chen and Sara Ma from
Troy, Michigan
.
Announcement and finalists
[
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]
YouTube and Lenovo announced the YouTube Space Lab competition on 10 October 2011. Applicants were challenged to design a microgravity experiment, and submissions closed in early December.
[1]
On 17 January 2012, YouTube Space Lab announced sixty finalists and started the voting process for the regional winners where over 150,000 YouTube users voted for their favorite experiments. These results were factored alongside YouTube Space Lab's panel of judges, including
Stephen Hawking
,
William Gerstenmaier
,
Leland Melvin
,
Akihiko Hoshide
,
Guy Laliberte
,
[1]
[2]
and
Tshilidzi Marwala
.
[3]
Stephen Hawking, however, was unable to fully participate as a judge at this stage because of health problems, and his position was filled by colleague
Paul Shellard
.
[4]
Regions
|
14- to 16-year-old finalists
[2]
|
17- to 18-year-old finalists
[2]
|
Asia Pacific
|
- Thomas Gambuti, Francesca Mcgrath, and Ruby Wright ? Australia
- Wyatt McCoach and Forrest Gerner ? Australia
- Abhishek Shastry and Animesh Shastry ? India
- Nitya Raju ? India
- Patrick Zeng and Derek Chan ? New Zealand
- Ping-Chun Lin & Wei-Ting Hsiao ? Taiwan
|
- Luke Ditria and Johnny Udall ? Australia
- Nasir Uddin and AKM Shoaibul Islam ? Bangladesh
- Ali Ashraf Mohd Rozaiddin, Muhammad Irsyad Aripin, and Mohd Aizat Mohd Ezmir ? Malaysia
- Bhoomika Agarwal and Shruthi C ? India
- Mohit Singhala ? India
- Nesar M.N. ? India
- Kavin Sundar Nath ? India
- Megha Sharma and Karan Sapolia Sharma ? India
- Sachin Kukke ? India
- Shri Shankari ? India
- Anna Yang and Cindy Chen ? Taiwan
- Sakomizu Wei-yu and Eileen Hess ? Taiwan
|
Europe, Middle East, and Africa
|
- Tobias Antensteiner ? Austria
- Victoria Tiki ? Austria
- Simon Kopf ? Germany
- Ariel Berko and Yoav Levi ? Israel
- Jaime Costa Centena ? Spain?Morocco
- Maciej Giza ? Poland
- Michał Styk, Maria Leniarska, and Jakub Jabło?ski ? Poland
- Stanisław Bartczak, Sylwia Grabi?ska, Mateusz Piotrowski ? Poland
- Rafał Wesołowski, Marcin Ruchniewicz, and Krzysztof Kallas ? Poland
- Laura Calvo and Maria Vilas ? Spain
- Luis Alvarez Ayuso and Marina Lopez Gonzalez ? Spain
- Reuben Thomas-Davis ? UK
- Harry Green and Jack Goodwill ? UK
|
- Amr Mohamed ? Egypt
- Francois Tirvaudey ? France
- Michael Judt ? Germany (lives in UK)
- Adam Debreceni ? Hungary
- Peter Egri and Gabor Galgoczi ? Hungary
- Bartosz Krzowski ? Poland
- Patrik Kopcinski ? Poland
- Joao Pereira and Vasco Ferreira ? Portugal
- Miguel Ferreira, Guilherme Aresta, and Daniel Carvalho ? Portugal
- Miguel Moral Sola and Rafael Ferrer Fernandez ? Spain
- Nicolas Mari Hernandez, Olivier van Donselaar, and Pere Balaguer Gimeno ? Spain
|
The Americas
|
- Katie Gwozdecky ? Canada
- Michael De Lazzari, Erik Friedman, and Jenny Zhang ? Canada
- Valentina Mazzanti and Sebastian Escobar ? Colombia
- Mark Liang ? US (San Marino, California)
- Natalie Ng ? US (Cupertino, California)
- Luis Tapia and Ben Miller ? US (Castro Valley, California)
- Pranav Singh ? US (Irvine, California)
- Sara Ma and Dorothy Chen ? US (Troy, Michigan)
- Cheyenne Hua, Erica Lin, and Karina Xie ? US (New York City, New York)
|
- Habeeb Ahmed and Annas Khan ? Canada
- Jesse Bettencourt, Alex Kasper, and Mackenzie Richardson ? Canada
- Jose Arce Gamboa and Brandon Solorzano ? Costa Rica
- Claudio Nahmad ? Mexico
- Mariana Infante ? Mexico
- Brian Barr, Shawn Albert, and Aditya Ragunathan ? US (Dacula/Snellville/Duluth, Georgia)
- Emerald Bresnahan ? US (Plainville, Massachusetts)
- Emily O'Brien, Jillian Stoneburg, and Art Sherman ? US (Barberton/Copley/ Akron, Ohio)
- Grady Ward, Colin Watts, and Charlie Wu ? US (Essex Junction, Vermont)
|
Regional and global winners
[
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Regional winners were determined by votes cast by the YouTube community factored alongside the votes cast by the competition's panel of judges. On 22 February 2012, YouTube Space Lab announced the following six regional winning teams, two from each international region:
[5]
The nine contestants gathered on March in Washington, D.C., to experience a zero-gravity flight on the "
Vomit Comet
" and to tour the
Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center
. They attended the competition award ceremony on 22 March at the
Newseum
, where Zahaan Bharmal announced the two winning experiments: Dorothy Chen and Sara Ma's bacteria experiment, and Amr Mohamed's jumping spider experiment.
[6]
BioServe Space Technologies, from the
University of Colorado at Boulder
, designed the two experiments using global winners' ideas.
[7]
Dorothy and Sara went to the
Tanegashima Space Center
in Japan in late July to watch the
Kounotori 3
launch the winning experiments into space. Instead of attending the launch, Amr chose to later go through cosmonaut training at the
Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center
in
Star City, Russia
.
[8]
[9]
Livestream and results
[
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]
On 13 September 2012,
Bill Nye
hosted a live-stream interview connecting the three global winners with astronaut
Sunita Williams
. Sunita, who had performed the experiments on the ISS, gave the preliminary results for these experiments. Dorothy and Sara had hypothesized that the
Bacillus subtilis
would become more efficient germ-fighters in microgravity, and the initial results showed signs of growth. However, the specimens would have to be taken back to Earth for further testing. Amr's experiment examined the predatory behavior of the
jumping spider
, and the ISS reported that Amr's spider, named Nefertiti and nicknamed Neffi, had successfully adapted to catch its prey in microgravity.
[10]
Nefertiti returned to Earth on 30 November 2012 and lived at the
O. Orkin Insect Zoo
in
Washington, D.C.
, until she died four days later.
[11]
Nefertiti's traveling companion, a
zebra spider
named Cleopatra, died soon after touchdown.
[12]
References
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]
External links
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]
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