Contest: NASA Bandz – check out our winners!

• By Barb Mattson
• February 23, 2011
• 3 Comments

Last week, we joined forces with some other NASA social media folks and gave our followers the opportunity to win some rare “NASA Bandz” that we just got our hands on. Apparently they were a hot giveaway item at the recent American Astronomical Society meeting – I guess you’re never too old for funny-shaped rubber bands! We put up a different question on a different social media account each day last week, and got some great responses. Some made us think, some made us laugh… and a select few were so awesome, they got our coveted NASA Bandz as a prize! To see our winners, read on.

We kicked off the contest on the Webb Telescope’s Facebook page with the question, “What other NASA satellites could be made into NASA bandz?” The obvious answer is “all of them” (I’d collect them all), but we got some compelling arguments for specific satellites. We chose our random winner, Dave, who suggested a popular Earth-observing satellite, which happens to be run from just down the street!

We haven’t heard back from Dave (there’s still time to get in touch with us!), so Maggie randomly selected a runner-up, Ravion:

Voyager is a classic, and both satellites have stood the test of time and sent back amazing information long past our expectations.

On day two, the contest moved to our very own Blueshift Facebook page, where we said, “Put your Macgyver hats on. Imagine you’re in a tight spot – how would you use NASA bandz to solve a problem?” And the answers cracked us up and we wish we could have rewarded everyone! We randomly selected an overall winner, and then our own personal favorites. Our random winner, Kim:

And our three honorable mentions – these were very thorough and funny!

Wednesday’s contest was hosted by @NASAUniverseEdu and asked entrants to tweet a fact about a Physics of the Cosmos mission. Tavi was our randomly selected winner:

On Thursday, we posted this question on @NASAblueshift: What famous/historical astronomer might use a set of NASA Bandz? The answers were all fantastic – a mix of thoughtful and hilarious ideas! Our random drawing winner had quite an educational idea:

And we loved this idea about Pluto so much, we wanted to reward it with a bonus set of NASA Bandz! (Though I think the number of bandz needed to return Pluto to planet status may exceed the number in our stash.)

Finally, our contest wrapped up with one last question over on the NASA Universe Education Facebook page: What object studied by any NASA’s Physics of the Cosmos mission would make cool NASA Bandz? The randomly selected winner, Jennifer, picked one of my favorite objects, M81:

And Jeffrey had an idea for a band that we probably shouldn’t make, as it sounds dangerous. So we are giving him an honorable mention prize!

Whew! Thanks for all of the amazing entries, and welcome to our new followers! Keep your eyes peeled for more opportunities to win NASA Bandz… we still have a few to give away!

If you were one of our winners, and haven’t gotten in touch with us, please use the contact form to send us your mailing address! We’ll be having a NASA Bandz prize packing party to get these out to our fantastic winners.