National prize for young Nelson artist

Doodle for Google logo competition

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"Green and Gorgeous" by Amelia Abbott, the winner of "Doodle for Google" - a competition for Kiwi kids to design the Google logo that will go online for one day in 2010.

KENT BLECHYNDEN/ The Dominion Post

SEARCH IS OVER: Amelia Abbott, 8, celebrates winning the New Zealand Doodle 4 Google competition, with Google webmaster Dennis Hwang. She won a laptop computer for herself and equipment worth more than $10,000 for her school.

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Eight-year-old Hampden Street School pupil Amelia Abbott has beaten thousands of other young artists to have her work seen by millions of people online in the national Doodle 4 Google competition.

Children from more than 600 primary and secondary schools gave the internet search engine giant's logo a makeover, inspired by the theme "My New Zealand".

After a public vote, Amelia was announced as the winner last night at a function at Te Papa.

Amelia's design, Green and Gorgeous, used the silver fern, a kiwi, a kiwifruit, a morepork, a nikau palm and a tuatara. She has won a laptop for herself and $10,000 worth of computer and technology equipment for her school.

Amelia said she hadn't expected to win.

"I didn't think I'd get the overall prize but I thought I might get the age-group finalist. Mum was quite shocked, but she was proud."

She said she would put her wooden trophy – shaped like a painter's palette – in her bedroom at home.

Hampden Street School deputy principal Rachel Rae said everyone at the school was "absolutely thrilled".

"We were so excited. We were all watching it on the news, and we're so thrilled for her because it's such a beautiful piece of art and she's such a talented wee girl," she said.

Mrs Rae said she hadn't yet heard what kind of equipment the school had won, but Amelia had also won the school an interactive whiteboard for being a finalist.

"We'll be celebrating big time for her and making sure her artwork is well displayed," she said.

Amelia said she picked the New Zealand nature theme because of our "wonderful bush".

Judge and Google webmaster Dennis Hwang said Amelia's design showed innovative use of animals and Kiwi icons as the letters in the Google logo to communicate her vision of New Zealand nature. "I would have been proud to see it come out of our Google doodle team."

Amelia's design will appear on the search engine's New Zealand homepage one day next year.

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