Ontario students compete to design Google doodle

TORONTO – Five Ontario children are among 25 semi-finalists vying to have their rendition of the Google logo placed atop Google.ca.

Google is holding a nation-wide contest inviting students from kindergarten to Grade 12 to submit their own version of the Google logo in the hopes it will be featured on the site for 24 hours.

Along with the fame of having their logo on Canada’s most visited website, they also get a $10,000 scholarship, a Google Chromebook, and a $10,000 grant to their school.

Here’s a look at the Ontario finalists’ answers to the contest’s premise: “If I could invent anything, I would invent…”

Annika Hollo from Riverside Montessori PreSchool

She wrote that if she could invent anything, she “would invent letters that aliens could understand.”

Elsa Qaisar from Munden Park Public School

Elsa wrote that if she could invent anything it would be a “thinking cap.”

Kelly Tsui from Beware Wet Paint Progressive Art School

Kelly would invent an “idea maker.”

Fiona Tung from Beware Wet Paint Progressive Art School

Fiona wrote that she would invent a “machine which could teleport people to different places all over the world in the blink of an eye without getting stuck in traffic jams or bad weather.” That way, she added, she “can have all my dreams come true to travel around the world.”

Cindy Tang, from Dr. Norman Bethune Collegiate Institute

Cindy wrote that if she could invent anything it would be a “telescope that would show us the depth of the sea.”

Thousands of children submitted entries when the contest opened Oct. 11. Since then, the entrants have been whittled down to five from each region (Ontario, Prairies, Atlantic Canada, Quebec and British Columbia and The North).

Designs from the finalists will be put on display at the Royal Ontario Museum after the public vote which ends on Feb. 14.