The VidOpp Video Contest Community

Kids are always told to reach for the stars. Now, NASA is literally giving them the chance to—by providing middle and high school students with unprecedented access to the International Space Station and letting them write the programs that control state-of-the-art robots on the International Space Station—no PhD. in astrophysics required!

The Zero Robotics Competition is part of a NASA, MIT and DARPA initiative to cultivate interest in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. Teams of 5-20 students compete to be the group that controls the SPHERE satellites in zero gravity, and ultimately serve as Ground Control for the REAL crew of the International Space Station. Plus, they get to watch their robots at work in real time via NASA’s live feed.

And your kid thought that Angry Birds Space was cool…

Requirements

Videos MUST NOT exceed 120 seconds in length. Preferred format is HD 720p 16×9. Acceptable file formats are .mov, .avi, .mp4, .wmv. Acceptable codecs are H.264 (MP4), MPEG-4, H.263, MPGV, WMV, DivX.

Unless provided otherwise, all work must be your own original creation and free of any copyrighted material. You will provide detailed information of your work regarding the source, the creator and background information as requested by Tongal.

While the use of the text “NASA” and “National Aeronautics and Space Administration” is allowable, the use of the NASA icon, (aka Meatball) is not.

In the event you utilize any third party materials, such as music provided by a third-party music provider, you must obtain full written license and consent from the owner of such third party materials and provide such license and consent forms to Tongal. Use of third party materials without provision of these forms is prohibited.
Videos must be in the English language or subtitled in English.
This project is NOT open to residents of China.
Limit 5 submissions per member, per Phase.

Eligibility

Contests are open only to natural persons, thirteen (13) years or older at the time of entry (or the age as otherwise specified in a particular project’s requirements on the Project Details Page), who are registered members of the Tongal online community (each, a “Member”).

Judging Criteria

Create 1-2 minute video that gets the world excited about the ZERO ROBOTICS Challenge. You can do this in MANY ways—so don’t limit your thinking on what could get people excited about students controlling objects in space. This could be anything from a “viral” video, to a slick mash up of the existing footage, to an inspired commercial—whatever you can think of. Just keep in mind that videos should make the competition feel accessible to everyone (i.e. to both boys and girls, coders and those without previous coding experience).

–Video Availability: Footage of previous ZERO ROBOTICS competitions will be available for use, but you are not required to include this footage in your video. You can see a complete list of available footage here, request the clips you would like by time code and NASA will provide you with the best quality version of those clips available. All requests should be sent to samples@tongal.com.

–Target Audience: High school and middle school students, teachers and mentors, education leaders, and parents.

–Exposure: Videos will be used for exposure and outreach, as a part of presentations to students about educational opportunities and will be included on web pages and social media outlets at NASA and MIT.

Prize

1st – $12,000
2nd – $6,000
3rd – $3000
4th – $2,000
5th – $1,250
6th – $1,000
7th – $1,000

Please don’t hesitate to ask any questions in the comments below.