Google on Wednesday announced the 40 regional finalists for this year's U.S. "Doodle 4 Google" contest.
The search giant said it received a record 107,000 submissions from student artists all across the country. Today, Googlers are visiting the schools of its regional finalists to celebrate their artwork; from Stilwell, Oklahoma to Woodinville, Washington.
To narrow it down to the final winner, Google is opening up the voting to its users. From now until May 13 at 11:59pm Pacific time, you can vote for your favorite on the Doodle 4 Google Web site. That will select the four national finalists in K-3, grades 4-6, grades 7-9, and grades 10-12. A winning design will appear on Google.com on Friday, May 20.
Google kicked off its fourth annual "Doodle 4 Google" contest in January. The competition calls on students from K-12 to design a Google homepage doodle in exchange for scholarship funds and a technology grant. Specifically, the national winner will receive a $15,000 college scholarship and $25,000 towards a new computer lab for his or her school.
All of the top 40 Regional Finalists will also have their work publicly displayed at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and at SFMOMA in San Francisco.
The judges included volunteer Googlers and guest judges Whoopi Goldberg, Evan Lysacek, Michael Phelps and Jim Davis, among others. They also helped select 400 state finalists.
"We'd like to take the time to thank the teachers, parents and administrators who encouraged their students to dream big and put those ambitions on paper. Without you, this contest wouldn't have been possible," Marissa Mayer, vice president of product management, wrote in a blog post.
Last year's winner was Makenzie Melton, a Missouri third grader.
Google has made headlines for its own in-house homepage doodles, meanwhile, including an interactive undersea-themed drawing in honor of author Jules Verne's 183rd birthday and 17 holiday-themed doodles that were live for two days in December.
Recently, it was revealed that Google obtained a patent for its popular homepage doodles, covering "systems and methods for enticing users to access a Web site."
For more on Google's doodles, see the slideshow below.