NASA collaborated with Hasbro using the correlation between the TRANSFORMERS brand, featuring its leader OPTIMUS PRIME, and spinoffs from NASA technologies created for aeronautics and space missions used here on Earth. The goal was to help students understand how NASA technology 'transforms' into things used daily.
The winner for sixth through eighth grades was based on the 2009 Spinoff story originating from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Star-Mapping Tools Enable Tracking of Endangered Animals." It is about how a star-mapping algorithm used on the Hubble Space Telescope is helping scientists track endangered animals like polar bears and whale sharks.
Go and watch the story on how a NASA technology helped to find Ronnie.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiWwIj7ii3w
For more information about NASA OPTIMUS PRIME Spinoff Award go to: http://ipp.gsfc.nasa.gov/optimus/index.php
(And yes that is actually the real voice of Optimus Prime, Peter Cullen.
