The UI Children’s Hospital is ranked first in the Gameroom Giveaway contest that would replace the current teen lounge with a high-tech rec room.

The online contest, which ends today, is hosted by Children’s Miracle Network and Microsoft XBox.

More than 150 hospitals are participating in the contest, and the top three will win up to $10,000 worth of XBox 360s, plasma TVs, computers, webcams, and furniture.

Voting is open to everyone and voters are eligible to win an XBox of their own.

As of Thursday night, the UI Children’s Hospital lead with 1,977,119 votes, followed by Arkansas Children’s Hospital and Blair E. Baston Hospital for Children at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.

A game room would give extended-stay patients in particular an important sense of “normalcy,” Aubrey Cichelli, the director of public relations for Children’s Miracle Network told the Daily Iowan.

“To have a game room where they can go and just be kids … takes their mind off of the more mature things that kids their age don’t have to deal with,” she said.

— by Lauren Mills