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Virginia 2nd Grader wins $30K scholarship from artwork chosen for Google homepage

Winner of Doodle for Google contest also wins her Fairfax Co. school $50,000 of Google technology.

Millions of people around the world are clicking on to a picture of dinosaurs drawn by a little girl in Fairfax County, Va. 

Sarah Gomez-Lane, 7, a second grader at Pine Spring Elementary School, won Google's Doodle for Google 2018 contest.   

Her drawing of colorful dinosaurs was in response to the question, "What inspires you?"

Last year, when Sarah was six, she told Google's judges that dinosaurs inspire her because she wanted to be a paleontologist. She's not so sure about that anymore, but still thinks the whole experience is "amazing!"

RELATED: Fairfax County 2nd grader's artwork displays on Google's homepage

So do her parents.  

"I think its just exciting. We're a Foreign Service family so we have friends and family and acquaintances and former co-workers that have been writing us from Dubai, from Ghana, from Azerbaijan, from Mexico, Guatemala, Turkey, Montenegro--all over the place! And congratulating Sarah. And just having a lot of fun playing with her dinos," said Maria Lane-Gomez, Sarah's mom. 

For the first time, in Doodle for Google's ten year history, Sarah got to collaborate with the Doodle team to transform her artwork into an animated, interactive experience.   

"Our task with this Doodle was really to take Sarah's artwork and bring it to life. We talked about what she was thinking when she made the characters. What they liked, what they didn't like," said a Google employee who worked with Sarah.  

The T-Rex plays the trumpet, the triceratops eats some ice cream, the brontosaurus eats blueberries and so on. 

Perhaps the most important prize, a $30,000 college scholarship to a school of Sarah's choice...in about 10 years. 

Pine Spring Elementary has also benefited from Sarah's win. The school got to chose $50,000 worth of Google technology and just this past, received the goods for Jamboards that are basically like a big computer screens that connects to the Internet.

They also received dozens of laptop carts that will allow them to move laptops around from classroom to classroom. 

Google has already launched the 2019 Doodle for Google contest...The question to answer in a drawing is: "When I grow up...."

Those Google technology products will be the first inside Fairfax County Public Schools.   

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