12-year-old wins Doodle for Google contest

Bellevue, Washington, middle Schooler Rebecca Wu has won this year’s Doodle for Google competition.

This year’s theme was “I am grateful for...” It didn’t take long for Wu to decide on a family theme. Her design, entitled “My Sweetest Memories,” was inspired by her relationship with her sisters, Anna and Esther.

“We help to inspire each other and to help each other grow like the vines and flowers in my picture,” Wu told USA Today. “I am never lonely with them, and they can cheer me up.”

The sixth grader’s design won out over thousands of entrees. Her art will appear on the Google homepage and she will receive $30,000 in college scholarship money, as well as a $50,000 technology grant.

“It’s really cool. It’s kind of unbelievable because it’s such a big thing,” Wu told GeekWire. “I think it’s just really nice.”

Her colorful Google doodle features the three sisters in a bed of flowers. All around them, hot chocolate steams from white mugs and garden flowers and vines form the word Google.

“Sometimes I love them, and sometimes I dislike them very much, but I can’t imagine my life without my sisters,” Wu wrote. “I have learned to be a little bit more patient with them, and they have had an enormous impact on me. We help to inspire each other and to help each other grow like the vines and flowers in my picture.

“In this drawing, we are having a fun time drinking hot chocolate, which is one of my fondest memories. The rainbow in the background symbolizes one the first things I helped one of my sisters draw. In one of my family pictures, my sisters (sitting next to me) and I (the one in the middle) are sitting in flowers with a background that I drew, so I thought it would be fun to reference.”