If a few weeks ago we talked about Laura Calvo and María Vilas going to Washington D.C. in the United States to meet the winners of the YouTube Space Lab contest, now we can say who has won. The winners are, a team from the United States with an experiment that studies how bacteria behave on Earth after being in space, and one from Egypt whose experiment analyzes the behavior of a spider, who jumps to capture its victims , in conditions of absence of gravity.
I am sorry for the Galician girls who had also prepared their experiment in great detail. We remember your proposal of “surfactants in microgravity” that was intended to study what happens when water, soap and oil are mixed in conditions of lack of gravity. Anyway, and as you can see in the video below or in the image that The article illustrates, the girls had a great time in Washington and shared with the rest of their partners moments that they will never forget.
The absolute winners in the 14 to 16 year old category, they are Dorothy and Sara, from Detroit (Michigan, USA) and as we have commented their experiment is to check if the lack of gravity alters the effectiveness of the bacteria to be used as fungicides. And in the category of 17 to 18 years, Amr, from Egypt, has been the winner with an experiment to study how the spider of the zebra species behaves in space.
The awards announcement ceremony took place yesterday at the Newseum, an innovative interactive museum, in Washington DC, and was the closing of a series of activities scheduled for regional winners. One of the activities was the participation in a parabolic flight, that is, in which the lack of gravity is experienced, and that, as can be seen in the video, the two young Galicians came up equipped with the flag of their Autonomous Community. They were also visiting the Udvar-Hazy Aerospace Museum in Dulles and all the regional winners were given a Lenovo computer that sponsored the contest.
I remember that Space Lab is sponsored by YouTube, Lenovo, Space Adventures, ESA, NASA and the Japanese space agency. A great alliance to enhance knowledge of science among the youngest. A great contest that we loved to have in Peques and Más. We congratulate all the participants and we continue with the doors open so that Laura and María come here to tell us.
