Want to experience evolution first-hand?

We are happy to announce that the NSF BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action is hosting an evolved art competition running from March 1st through May 31st, 2013. The goal of this competition is to evolve an alternative lighthouse to the BEACON lighthouse on the collaborative art evolution web site Picbreeder. The top three lighthouses submitted will receive monetary awards of $200 (1st place), $100 (2nd place), and $50 (3rd place). With control over the creative power of evolution, can you evolve BEACON’s new logo?

How will the competition work?

You can join the competition by creating an account on Picbreeder. Make sure to provide a valid email address on your Picbreeder profile. We will be contacting the winners via the email address provided on their Picbreeder profile. This competition is open to the general public, not just BEACON members!

After you have created a profile, start evolving art! Picbreeder provides thorough instructions for how to evolve art on the web site: http://picbreeder.org/gettingstarted.php

Once you are ready to make a submission to the competition, use the Publish feature to make the image publicly available. Tag the image with the text “BEACON.” If you do not publish the image with the “BEACON” tag, it will not be considered for the competition! You may enter as many images as you like.

On June 1st, we will collect all of the images submitted to the competition and organize a committee of BEACON scientists to select the top three images. Only images published on or before May 31st will be considered for the competition. We will publicly announce the winners and present awards by June 14th.

AWARDS:

First place: $200 Visa gift card

Second place: $100 Visa gift card

Third place: $50 Visa gift card

Good luck! We’re looking forward to seeing everyone’s creativity!