What If? 2009

2009 What If? Competition - If you are a 6th, 7th or 8th grader (ages 10-14) in the U.S., you can enter this essay competition and win a great prize! This year’s competition is about living on an orbiting space station as the first step to building colonies on the moon or mars. Use your imagination, innovation and intelligence to tell us what we can learn from this experiment. This essay and any supporting information are due February 13, 2009. You can form a team of two or work alone, and you need to recruit an Adult Sponsor. You can Register your team now!

Here's an excerpt from the schedule:

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Feb 1, 2009 – Registration Closes to all Registrants
All teams must have registered by 11:59pm Central Time, February 1st to be eligible for the competition.

Feb 13, 2009 – Competition Entries are due via the guidelines
All submission documents MUST be emailed to entry@whatifprize.org before 11:59pm Central Time, February 13th, 2009. Please read the full Submission Guidelines prior to submitting your entry.

March 2, 2009: Winners are selected
If your team is a winner, you and your team’s Adult Advisor will be notified by email no later than March 3rd. There will be one 1st place winner for each grade (6th, 7th and 8th) and one Grand Prize Winner selected from the three 1st place grade winners.

April 2nd – 4th, 2009: Grand Prize Winner Participates in the Conrad Award Innovation Summit™
The Grand Prize Winning team is awarded a trip to the Conrad Award Innovation Summit™ which is the final program of our partner program, the Pete Conrad Spirit of Innovation Awards. For more details on these awards, click here. This Summit is being conducted in conjunction with Yuri’s Night – a celebration of the first manned spaceflight – at NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. ...