Last month, we continued our monthly competition by celebrating the ways that music and technology blend together and asking you to make an original song using Google Song Maker. We’ve had more than a few music making challenges over the years but this challenge was unique in how visually interesting and appealing your musical submissions were. We found ourselves humming along to so many of the creative songs you all submitted. Thank you for all your wonderful entries!

Grand Prize

Our Grand Prize winner is a fun ditty made by IronSeaweed from Orinda Intermediate School in Orinda, CA. While it can be easy to be mesmerized by the layout and color of your music when composing a song in Google Song Maker, it’s most importantly a music making tool. We liked that this song by IronSeaweed focused so much on the basics of musical composition that make so many famous classical songs work. This song has a playful mood with a great tempo to match that’s not too quick or too slow. Some well placed arpeggios combined with a few great repeating chords really make this song sound like a thoughtful original piece. Excellent work, IronSeaweed!

1st Runner Up

Our 1st Runner up was made by ShakeBreakSeagull & PandaBoy101 at Rogers Middle School in Long Beach, CA. We got some serious nostalgia listening to this song as it starts out a bit like the home screen on the Nintendo Wii video console. However, ShakeBreakSeagull & PandaBoy101 clearly make this track original with each marimba note adding to a mood that’s bouncy, fun and light. We especially enjoyed the ending where the song goes into a sort of marimba solo. Great job, ShakeBreakSeagull & PandaBoy101!

2nd Runner Up

Our 2nd Runner up was made by Rohan.N from Eastview Senior High in Apple Valley, MN. This song combines the visual benefits of Google Song Maker while still maintaining a solid rhythm and chord structure. The fast tempo and constant percussion on the drum kit work well together to give this winning song its energetic feel. Awesome work, Rohan.N!

Our honorable mentions go out this month to:

• 321rustamr’s song sounds like a marimba solo by a musical madman/genius
• STARWARS TRICKS’s piece had loads of experimentation

Our Grand Prize winner will receive a $50 Adafruit 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.

The newest Microproject competition is already open and will have six total winners who will each take home a prize! This month your challenge is to design a comic or meme about one of 12 topics using BrainPOP's Creative Coding with Vidcode.