To kick off our monthly MicroProject competition, this September we asked you to consider the advances being made in artificial intelligence and machine learning by creating an avatar that represents your technology goals for the coming year. All month, the new Project Gallery has been teeming with the hundreds of amazing avatars you all submitted, and we were astounded by how much creativity and imagination they showcased. Thank you for submitting so many awesome avatars!

Grand Prize

Our first Grand Prize winner of the 2017-2018 school year is ali630xo at the McPherson Magnet School in Orange, California! We appreciated how ali630xo designed this avatar to reflect the steps needed to accomplish the goal of creating a game in Scratch. We found the step design clever in that ali630xo has a tennis character climbing the steps of the goal from the left, to ultimately have that same character on the computer screen in a programmed tennis game on the right. We think you’re off to a great start toward achieving your goals, ali630xo. Congrats!

1st Runner Up

Our 1st Runner up is Kylie J. at Cedar Middle School in Hesperia, California! Kylie also did an excellent job of tying the distinct features of their avatar to the goals explained in their awesome description. Kylie’s avatar reflects a person who wants to be a successful and accomplished musician with everything from the turntable and music notes, to the singing face and computer connected microphone. Well done, Kylie J!

2nd Runner Up

And finally our 2nd Runner up is csosacontrera4354 at Bronx International High School in the Bronx, NY! csosacontrera4354 didn’t include a description of the work but we think it was done well enough to speak for itself. We loved the detailed shelf design that incorporates the many different elements of this avatar into one cohesive piece. From the many included details, we can tell that csosacontrera4354 is passionate about animals, nature, sports and probably design!  Great work, csosacontrera4354!

Our honorable mentions go out this month to:

Special shout out to the talented students at PS 139 in Queens, NY who sent in over 70 submissions! You guys worked hard and it showed in the many beautiful images submissions you sent!

We received so many other fantastic submissions that we couldn’t shout out here. Thankfully, we have a new featured work section of our new Project Gallery where we can show a little love to the great projects that aren’t listed in this post. Check out the Project Gallery so see more of these awesome avatars!

Our Grand Prize winner will receive a $50 Sparkfun Gift Certificate for their school, and our 1st and 2nd Runners up will each win a prize of their choice from our new prize chest!

Want another chance at one of these awesome prizes? This month your challenge is to design a 360° haunted house for viewers to enjoy in VR!