First ever Mathematica contest

Memorial Day is coming up. For non-American readers, Wikipedia explains the significance of the holiday:

Memorial Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the last Monday of May (May 30 in 2011). Formerly known as Decoration Day, it commemorates men and women who died while in military service to the United States. First enacted to honor Union and Confederate soldiers following the American Civil War, it was extended after World War I to honor Americans who have died in all wars.

Memorial Day also marks the beginning of the summer vacation season in the U.S. Vacation means fun and fun means it’s time for our first ever Mathematica programming contest. In honor of Memorial Day I’m going to ask contestants to draw the US Flag in Mathematica. Your flag should look something like this:

I’m excited to not be able to find any Mathematica flags via Google so this is a ground-breaking contest.

I’ll give 20 US dollars via Paypal (or Amazon gift card to US folks if the winner prefers) to the person who submits the entry that is most elegant, whatever that means. I’m the sole judge and my very subjective ruling is final. To be eligible to win you should get the colors roughly right as well as the number of stars and stripes. I’ll give extra points if your flag has creases in it, as if it were flapping in the wind. I’ll give double extra brownie points if you create an animated GIF of your Mathematica US flag flapping in the wind. The contest ends Tuesday night in your local time, anywhere in the world, or later if I don’t get any submissions!

I’ll showcase all the submissions I get and I’ll try to get some visibility beyond this blog for the winner and his or her entry. Email your Mathematica code to me at sol dot lederman at gmail dot com and tell me the URL of your blog or web-site and I’ll link back to you when I publish all the submissions.

Well, what are you waiting for, get to work!!!