A year ago, I blogged about the Google SketchUp 3D campus competition wherein college and university students try to create the best-looking model of their institution’s campus. The grand prize was a trip to Alice’s Wonderland—er, Google’s Mountain View, CA headquarters. Unfortunately, the contest was only open to U.S. and Canadian students. Seven lucky teams from schools ranging from Stanford University to Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering won the prize. (There was also a similar succeeding contest for Australia and New Zealand.)

This year, Google again launched the 3D campus modeling contest and now it’s open to almost all countries (except those where Google Earth can’t be downloaded, like Syria and Sudan). Yay! Unfortunately, the prize is no longer a trip to Google HQ but rather a Google package containing an iPod Touch, a Nintendo Wii console, and various Google goodies (not bad, though).

Anyway, I’ll reiterate my opinion that the best campus to model is still U.P. Diliman. Ateneo de Manila’s and U.P. Los Baños’ equally sprawling campuses are also good bets. De La Salle’s modern Greek architecture, University of Santo Tomas’ Spanish architecture, and Silliman University’s American architecture might also be viable despite being in relatively smaller campuses just as long as the quality is high.