Cosmic Collections - the Cosmos and Culture website competition launch October 24, 2009

Are you a design, astronomy or web enthusiast? Team up to win £1000 for the best website!

The Science Museum is launching a competition to release hundreds of stories from the Cosmos & Culture exhibition on to the web. Join other astronomy enthusiasts, designers and web developers in an amazing mashup of creativity and ideas by creating your own websites with our objects.

What happens at the Cosmic Collections launch?

Cosmos & Culture tour by Curator Alison Boyle
Come along and uncover some of the hidden stories and people from the Cosmos & Culture gallery.

Mashups, Museums and the Web - In conversation with Mia Ridge
Join this web session with Mia, our Lead Web Developer, and find out more about online museum audiences and web resources for the competition.

Drama: Caroline Herschel
Born in 1750, Caroline Herschel was the first professional female astronomer. Meet her and find out how she helped mapped out the heavens!

Exploring the Cosmos with Dr Chris Welch
Hear from Dr Chris Welch the latest ways in which scientists are exploring the cosmos.

Cosmos and Culture wall
Meet other people, share your expertise, and create a wall of stories, people and objects.

Help us the record the day: bring drivers licence or student card to borrow a digital camera.

Sound good? Let us know you're coming by signing up for the launch at http://cosmiccollections.eventbrite.com/ and add your details to the competition wiki(http://cosmiccollections.pbworks.com/) to put together a team.

From ancient heritage to cutting-edge technology, Cosmos & Culture traces the history of people and the stars through stories from around the world. But we can't tell all the stories ourselves - we need your help. We're giving you the chance to make your own website with our objects. The winning sites will be hosted by us, so not only does taking part look great on your CV, but there are two prizes of £1000 up for grabs.

Whether you’re interested in astronomy, websites or a little bit of both, you're invited to the special launch event on 24 October where you can find out more about the competition and meet people who have the skills you need to put together a winning web interface. Raid the curator's brains about the history of the objects, discover more about online space resources and listen to some cosmic storytelling.

The data relating to the remarkable objects on display will be made open to the public so that competition entrants can 'mash it up', combining it with external resources and software to create new interfaces.

This is a bold experiment for the Science Museum - we're releasing our data and what happens next is completely up to you. Your challenge is to create brand new web interfaces for the objects - to shine a new light onto them and bring the stories behind them to life.

If you want to get in contact, email us via the eventbrite (http://cosmiccollections.eventbrite.com/) contact page or tweet @coscultcom. The event hash tag is #coscultcom.

Got some great ideas, but not sure how to turn them into a website? Can't make it to London? Then register your details at http://cosmiccollections.pbworks.com/FrontPage#register to find some team mates.

Don't worry if you can't make it to London - the competition is open to all, and submission and judging take place online.

Official Website: http://cosmiccollections.eventbrite.com/