New York: If you are looking for any proof that Indian students are gifted, hungry and hard working then look no further than YouTube’s Space Lab competition. The US led with 10 finalists, followed closely by India with nine, said YouTube officials.
YouTube challenged 14 to 18-year-old students to design a science experiment that can be performed in space and the entries haven’t disappointed. One of the finalists contends in her slick video proposal that galaxies form similarly to “how snowflakes form from the inside out.” She believes to have found evidence that the “hexagonal formation of a snowflake relates to other aspects of the universe — a shape that’s also seen on the north pole of Saturn.” Another high school student, who is an aspiring molecular biologist, decided to look into the idea of testing insulin production in bacteria.Nitya Raju, a 14-year-old student from Hyderabad, said one of the first things that popped into his head when he learnt he had made the cut was Stephen Hawking will be judging my project!
“My video shows a simple experiment to determine how liquids of different viscousities behave variously under microgravity. While most have seen the shapes water can assume when floating in a space shuttle, I’m curious about how the viscosity of a liquid affects its form,” Raju told Business Standard.
The YouTube community will be invited to judge the final 60 entries, alongside stalwarts like NASA astronaut Leland Melvin and 69-year-old physicist Stephen Hawking whose bestselling 1988 book, A Brief History of Time sold nine million copies and propelled him into instant stardom.
“Space Lab brings together the brightest young minds in the world today – and we’re impressed with all of the thought-provoking entries,” said Michael Schmedlen, worldwide director of education, Lenovo.
“From a global education standpoint, we’re seeing a strong correlation between the entries received and the results from our Global Student Science and Technology Outlook survey, which reveals students in emerging countries — India, Mexico and Russia — have a greater interest in and prioritize science-related careers over students in other developed countries,” added Schmedlen.
YouTube has come up with dream prizes for budding astronauts. Six regional winners will be announced in February and will gather in Washington, in March to experience a zero gravity flight and receive a Lenovo IdeaPad laptop. Then two global winners, one from each age group, will be picked from the regional champs. The winners will see their experiments performed via YouTube livestream from the International Space Station, and get to choose either a stint at astronaut camp in Russia or the chance to see their experiment launch into space from Japan. How cool is that!
The majority of entries, nearly 40 percent, came from India, followed by the US with 15 percent. Rounding out the top 10 countries in terms of total submissions are UK, Russia, Israel, Canada, Spain, Italy, Poland and Japan. Seventy-eight percent of the entries came from the 14 to 16-year-old teams and the rest from the 17 to 18-year-old teams.
Hosted by YouTube, Lenovo, and Space Adventures in cooperation with NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, YouTube Space Lab received thousands of videos from 80 countries. The winners will be announced in March in Washington; anyone can vote for the finalists through YouTube’s SpaceLab channel.