Audrey Zhang had a day of high-powered meetings to get to. After being flown cross-country for this business trip, she had executives to greet and big decisions to make. An entire team of people was waiting to carry out her
Audrey Zhang had a day of high-powered meetings to get to. After being flown cross-country for this business trip, she had executives to greet and big decisions to make. An entire team of people was waiting to carry out her ideas on this project, which would be seen by millions. She had been paid a lot, and her wisdom was essential.
Oh, and Audrey — the visitor with the grand vision — is 11 years old.
And Monday you could see the results of her big trip. Audrey, who is from New York state, is the winner of the seventh annual Doodle 4 Google student contest, in which more than 100,000 grade-school students from around the United States entered art designs centered on the theme of the environment.
Fifty state finalists were flown to Mountain View, Calif., last month for a ceremony at Google headquarters. But it was Audrey who — as the big winner — got to stay an extra day so she could team up with Google’s artists.
Her finished creation was featured Monday on Google’s home page. It’s an animated version of Audrey’s winning artwork, which shows her vision for a machine that helps clean polluted water.
The art is “so lush and so rich and so full and so complete,” Ryan Germick, leader of the Team Google Doodle artists, tells The Post’s Comic Riffs. “Every leaf seemed to have life in it.”
This is the first time Google has animated the winning student doodle. Germick says his team did not realize what a big job that would be. “We never imagined it would have 150 moving parts,” says Germick, noting that his team was enthused about making Audrey’s art come to life.
Germick tells us he was impressed by Audrey’s “amazing” persistence, because she entered the contest for three years straight — each year getting a step closer to being named champion.
He also was impressed by the detail in her artwork, which was made with colored markers. “There are lightning bugs and little characters and dragons everywhere,” Germick says. “Her imagination is so advanced.”
Audrey played on Google’s computers as she told the team of 10 animators what she thought should move in her artwork, including the flickering lantern light and the wings of the water-cleaning machine.
Audrey won a $30,000 college scholarship from Google, which also gave a $50,000 tech grant to her school, Island Trees Middle School in Levittown, New York. Google also donated $20,000 in Audrey’s name to provide clean water and bathrooms at 10 schools in Bangladesh.
Germick says that Google was inspired by Audrey’s creation and that he sees a bright future for her as an artist. “It was a thrill to meet her,” he says. “That is just pure talent. She was born with something incredible.”
Audrey, who also makes sculptures and jewelry, likes to say, “If you don’t draw, then you can’t show anyone else what your ideas look like.”
