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NASA’s TRANSFORMERS OPTIMUS PRIME Spinoff Promotion and Research Challenge 2017 has Found its Spark

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is pleased to announce the winners of NASA’s 2017 TRANSFORMERS OPTIMUS PRIME Spinoff Promotion and Research Challenge (OPSPARC).

Sponsored by science enrichment provider Mad Science and leading science fiction and fantasy book imprint, Tor Books, the contest called for students in grades 3 through 12 to “Be the Spark” and use NASA technology to create spinoffs that are… “MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE.” Spinoffs are NASA developed technologies that are repurposed and commercialized. One famous example is memory foam. Students shared their ideas on student-designed digital posterboards, called “Glogs,” using a cloud-based, interactive learning and multimedia platform made by Glogster.


High school winners Nick Perlaky, Erik Fong, Atherton Mook and Hays Mook, with their college mentor, Kelly DeRees, won their category with their InWorld presentation “Microshutter Array Fiber Optics,” which was based on the James Webb Space Telescope’s microshutter array technology.

Credits: NASA

Sienna Paggao, Carolyn Chambers, Olivia Turnage and Mila Ahsaei won the elementary age group with their Glog “Hydro Electric House.” Alexa Tabibian and Ellie Jones were selected as middle school winners with their Glog “Thermawing Greenhouse (Thermabed).” Nick Perlaky, Erik Fong, Atherton Mook and Hays Mook, along with college mentor Kelly DeRees, won the high school age group with their InWorld presentation “Microshutter Array Fiber Optics.”

The winners of the 2017 OPSPARC competition will visit NASA Goddard for a workshop and awards ceremony to be held in their honor from June 21 through June 22, 2017. As part of the workshop, the winners will meet with some of Goddard’s top scientists and engineers, go on a behind-the-scenes tour and create their own public service announcement video with guidance from NASA video producers and actor Peter Cullen, the voice of the TRANSFORMERS character OPTIMUS PRIME.

As part of OPSPARC 2017, students gave life to NASA inspired spinoff ideas, just as the “ALLSPARK” gave life to TRANSFORMERS. Students created “Glogs” that showcased what a spinoff is and their original spinoff concepts.

In response to the challenge, OPSPARC received more than 800 entries from students nationwide. A panel of OPSPARC judges from NASA scored the Glog submissions and narrowed them down to 10 finalists from each grade category (grades 3 through 5, 6 through 8, and 9 through 12) for the public to vote on their favorites. The voting period was from April 24 to May 1, 2017.

The National Institute of Aerospace oversees the two-phased competition for high school students. During phase one, students created their “Glogs” and came up with their spinoff concepts. During phase two, 14 teams were invited to work with college student mentors to further develop their spinoff ideas in InWorld, a 3-D, multi-user, virtual world setting that uses a variety of virtual models depict the spinoff concepts.

Do you want to be part of the OPSPARC team? “Be the Spark” during the 2018 OPSPARC competition and show the world that you have spinoff ideas that are more than meets the eye. The 2018 OPSPARC competition will “roll-out” in September 2017.

TRANSFORMERS, OPTIMUS PRIME, ALLSPARK and MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE are trademarks of Hasbro and are used with permission.

©2017 Hasbro. All Rights Reserved.

To find out more about the contest, visit: https://partnerships.gsfc.nasa.gov/opsparc/