The last three days, the Doodles have been interactive – in fact, they’ve all been playable games. On Tuesday, the Doodle let you compete as an Olympic hurdler. Yesterday, it let you shoot hoops in honor of Olympic basketball. And today, Google debuted their toughest game so far, one that involved slalom canoeing.

But it was the first Doodle, the hurdling one, that sparked a bit of controversy on the interwebs. The game (which you can see above) drew claims of subtle racism from people on social media who said that the black athlete was running on a surface that too closely resembled a watermelon.

Whether or not you believe that this was an intentional joke, a coincidence that was blown out of proportion, or an example of an eager public waiting to jump on anything (no matter how far-fetched), there’s no denying that Google could have been a lot more racist with their Doodle.

And Conan goes there…

And for the last couple of days, those Doodles have been playable. On Tuesday, the Doodle featured a hurdles game. Yesterday, it was a basketbal mini-game. And today, it’s the Canoe Slalom.

Brace yourselves. Maybe you happened to get three gold stars in either of the previous games – but this one is much harder. Not only do you have to alternatively press the arrow keys to give the canoe forward momentum, but you have to deftly guide it through gates and avoid obstacles as well.

This guy’s time is pretty good, but there has already been rumblings of sub-12, even sub-11 second times.

The Slalom Canoe was first held as a competition in 1932 in Switzerland. At first, it was held on flat water, but later changed to the white water rapids that we’ve come to love. It was originally modeled after the ski slalom. In 1972, the event made its Olympic debut – but it didn’t become a permanent Olympic event until 1992.

The course for the Canoe Slalom is 250 meters long, and athletes’ times down the course determine their success. There can be up to 25 gates throughout the course, and failing to properly pass through one can result in a penalty – 2 seconds for touching it, and 50 seconds for missing it altogether.

Events include the Kayak (men’s and women’s) and the Canoe (single and double). This year, France leads the medal count with two, both gold.

And the Canoe Slalom is just one of the many canoe events at these London Games. Check out the IOC’s short video on Olympic canoeing below:

This game is much different – maybe a bit harder. It’s a simple hoops game where you have 24 seconds to make as many shots as you can from the free throw line – but the mechanism for shooting can be tricky to master. The mechanism for shooting involves tapping your space bar. Waiting too long to release the ball results in a severe overthrow, and you’ll be able to tell when you messed up by the glowing red basketball in your hand. My first try netted 18 points, but there are people out there doing much, much better:

Of course, today’s Doodle celebrates basketball in the London Games – both men’s and women’s. Men’s basketball was first played as an Olympic sport in 1936, and the women finally got their chance to shine in 1976. The 1992 Games in Barcelona marked the first time that professionals competed, and we all know how that turned out (Dream Team, baby!).

This year, 144 men and 144 women will participate in Olympic basketball. 600 basketballs will be used on the way to medals for six teams.

Today, the men’s quarterfinal round sees the United States take on Argentina. And tomorrow, the United States women’s team will face Australia in the semifinals of their bracket.

Yesterday, Google was accused by some of subtle racism for their Olympic hurdles Doodles. Some people said that it clearly depicted a black man running on a track that looked like a watermelon. As of now, I can’t discern anything overtly “racist” from today’s Doodle, but it wouldn’t surprise me if someone did before the day’s over.

The doodle honors the birthday of Robert Arthur Moog, who founded Moog Music and invented the Moog synthesizer. Here’s how Google portrays Moog with its new Knowledge Graph results:

Appropriately, the doodle is playable, not unlike Google’s previous Les Paul doodle. I wonder if the Moog doodle is a productivity killer too.

It should be noted that the doodle’s interactivity does not work for everyone. So far, it’s unclear why this is the case. We tested in in the office, with the same browsers on identical machines. For some it worked, and for others, it didn’t. When it doesn’t work, it just clicks through to Google’s search results for “Bob Moog”. This is essentially how Google’s non-interactive doodles work.

Like the Les Paul doodle, you can also record your music with the Moog doodle. Perhaps this one will get Rickrolled too.

Google’s interactive doodles are generally among their most popular. Beyond these two, the Pac-Man and Freddie Mercury doodles stand out in one’s memory:

Earlier this week, Google ran a doodle created by a second grader who won the company’s annual Doodle 4 Google contest.

Now, enjoy Junip enjoying a Moog:

Now, after an online voting period, the winner emerges in the form of a second grader from Racine, Wisconsin.

Dylan Hoffman’s Doodle “Pirate Times” was his response to this years prompt, “If I could travel in time I’d visit…” His pirate-themed Doodle incorporates a pirate ship, the sun, a parrot, a coconut tree, and some cleverly placed booty to form the final “e” in the Google logo.

For his efforts, Dylan will receive a $30,000 college scholarship, a Chromebook, and his school will get a $50,000 technology grant. His artwork, as well as that by our 50 state finalists, will be featured in an upcoming exhibit at the New York Public Library. Dylan’s Doodle will be the official Google Doodle on their homepage tomorrow, May 18th.

Google also announced that alongside the national winner, four other Doodles (separated by grade level) have been named “National Finalists.” The artists behind these Doodle will each receive a $5,000 college scholarship.

For grades 4-5, Talia Mastalski’s “Traveling to me”:

For grades 6-7, Herman Wang’s “Retro City”:

For grades 8-9, Susan Olivera’s “Traveling Back to the Future”:

For grades 10-12, Cynthia Cheng’s “A World of Adventure”:

You can check out all the state finalists and winners here.

As a colleague pointed out, the doodle focuses more on art than on drinking, which has become the true meaning of the holiday to some, despite its cultural and religious origins.

If you want to compare the doodle to last year’s (which wasn’t so much about drinking either), you can see it in this Google Doodle compilation:

By the way, in light of Google’s increased push on semantic search and direct answers, it’s worth noting that a Google search for “St. Patty’s Day” returns a direct answer for St. Patrick’s Day:

Of course, talk and the sharing of imagery and videos related to the holiday are all over the social networks, including Google’s own Google+. In fact, it becomes pretty clear that Google+ is no ghost town if you do a search for St. Patrick’s Day, as you can watch the new posts roll in pretty quickly.

Here are some videos that are popping up:

Of course, Google’s Doodle is more about the web search part of Google, and clicking it will simply take you to the query for “St. Patrick’s Day”. Google thinks this Wikipedia entry for St. Patrick’s Day is the best result for that. Do you agree?

A lot of others were wondering the same thing. For example, here are a couple of the comments we got:

“So how exactly did u get the recording of its size without making it melt?”

“Someone could have bulls**tted the whole story with a made up sketch, fake measurements and false claims. You dont know, i dont know, theres no telling if this even really happened….”

According to Wikipedia, which Google presented as the top organic result when clicking on the doodle, in the snowflake was observed in 1887 at 38 centimeters (15 in) in diameter in Fort Keogh, Montana.

The Wikipedia entry cites: Lyons, Walter A (1997). The Handy Weather Answer Book (2nd ed.). Detroit, Michigan: Visible Ink press. ISBN 0-7876-1034-8.

I dug up a New York Times article from 2007, which references the same snowflake, noting that it’s listed in the Guinness Book of World Records, and that the snowflake was measured by a nearby rancher, who described the flakes falling in the storm which produced the flake in question, as “larger than milk pans”. It also says that there was no corroborating evidence to support the rancher’s claim.

I’m having a hard time finding anything about the record on Guinness’ site, but here are some other interesting snow-related records.

Here’s an interesting excerpt from that NYT article:

“Who of us has seen a hailstone the size of a golf ball or a baseball?” asked Kenneth G. Libbrecht, a snowflake devotee at the California Institute of Technology who runs the physics department there in his spare time. “But, clearly, they exist, because people pull them out of their freezers. Some of these things can be very, very rare, but not impossible.”

The laws of physics, he said, suggest no obvious restrictions on the size of very large flakes. But in the real world, Dr. Libbrecht added, wind might break up the fragile compilations, putting an effective size limit on what flutters down from the sky.

tagSEOBlog uploaded the following video demonstrating the animation (hat tip to Barry Schwartz):

If you go to Google.com today, you will notice a new Google doodle celebrating the 125th anniversary of the world’s largest snowflake. Then, you might ask yourself, ‘Where does Google come up with this stuff?”

The doodle is animated. A flock of birds flies away as the giant snowflake falls from the sky, to land as the second “O” in the word Google. A cow looks at it for a second, then goes about her business.

According to Wikipedia, which Google presents as the top organic result when clicking on the doodle, it was this day in 1887 when the largest snowflake was observed at 38 centimeters (15 in) in diameter in Fort Keogh, Montana.

Those visiting Google might also notice a message that says: “We’re changing our privacy policy and terms. Not the usual yada yada. Learn more.”

If you haven’t been following, Google announced some major changes to its privacy policy this past week, which is essentially a consolidation of policies across Google services. What it boils down to is that you should consider using any Google product (other than a few select products) the same as using Google, because they fall into the same terms, and Google will use data across these different services. Here is some of our coverage:

Your Grandmother Will Love Google’s New Policy Terms

Google Privacy Changes: What Do They Mean To You?

Can Consumers Opt-Out Of Google’s New Privacy Policy?

Google Privacy: “The Real Story”

Google’s Policy For Government Contracts Unchanged

Google’s Privacy Approach With Danny Sullivan and NPR

More Backlash From Google’s New Privacy Policy

Yes, Virginia, Google’s New Privacy Policy Lets You Opt Out Of Sharing Your Data

The doodle was created by artist Faith Ringgold. Here’s the bio she uses on her site:

Faith Ringgold, began her artistic career more than 35 years ago as a painter. Today, she is best known for her painted story quilts — art that combines painting, quilted fabric and storytelling. She has exhibited in major museums in the USA, Europe, South America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. She is in the permanent collection of many museums including the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and The Museum of Modern Art. Her first book,Tar Beach was a Caldecott Honor Book and winner of the Coretta Scott King Award for Illustration, among numerous other honors. She has written and illustrated eleven children’s books. She has received more than 75 awards, fellowships, citations and honors, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Fellowship for painting, two National Endowment for the Arts Awards and seventeen honorary doctorates, one of which is from her alma mater The City College of New York.

Faith Ringgold is married to Burdette Ringgold and has two daughters, Michele and Barbara Wallace; and three granddaughters, Faith, Theodora and Martha. She is a professor of art at the University of California in San Diego, California.

Here’s what Google’s doodle for the day looked like last year:

What do you think of the new doodle? Which do you like better?

Google is also no stranger to providing interesting tools based on holidays and events. See the company’s election resources, for example. Now, Google has a way to send your Valentine an interesting e-card. 

Mike Blumenthal, who keeps a close eye on all things Google Maps, noticed that Google registered the domain MapYourValentine.com, where the company has put up this: 

You can map your "special Place" and send the valentine (if you can read the letters in the CAPTCHA). You are then greeted with options for sending chocolates or flowers, conveniently mapped on Google Maps, or for finding a date, which takes you to a regular Google search for "find a date".