Two students from Dindigul district won NASA’s 2018 Commercial Crew Program Calendar Art Contest, beating students from 193 countries across the world.

Kaviya BJ and K Selva Sreejith are the winners from Shree Vidhya Mandhir in Pushpathur.

The art contest targeted students between the ages 4 and 12.

Ten other students from different countries including Indonesia, Italy, France and Germany were also declared the winners of the contest.

The children were given different topics to choose from and Selva chose, ‘What would you take from home?’ He had depicted a bicycle, a pet, some plants and a family member. Kaviya chose the topic ‘Space food’ and drew an organic garden in space.

Their work will be printed in NASA’s 2018 calendar and will be sent to the International Space Station. The students who won will also receive a gift package with goodies from NASA along with a copy of the calendar.

Vasantha Sevanan, Principal of Shree Vidhya Mandhir, said, “Five students from our school participated in the contest and each of them chose to work on a different topic. Our school has an exclusive arts and crafts class called ‘Tactile Land’ in which we train students to develop an interest for arts.”

The contest was a result of the tie-up that the school has with Imageminds, a digital media training institute that has over 35 centres across the country.

A video put on NASA’s page shows one of the astronauts saying, “Everyone who submitted art for the calendar was between 4 and 12 years old. That means they have never known a world that didn't have someone living in space. And they are the right age to one day become astronauts who walk on Mars. So keep studying and keep being creative!”