Congressman Schiff Announces Winners of 2022 Congressional App Challenge
Today, Congressman Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) announced the three student winners of the 2022 Congressional App Challenge.
Established by the House in 2013 to promote STEM and computer-based skills, the Congressional App Challenge is open to all middle and high school students who live in or attend school in Schiff’s district.
“The use of technology has become omnipresent in our daily lives – and especially for students, who in our post-pandemic world now rely on a variety of online platforms to do everything from submitting assignments, to planning their schedules, to tracking their academic and personal goals. The demands on our young people have never been greater, but of course, they never cease to blow us away by coming up with creative, cutting-edge solutions all on their own,” said Schiff. “The winners of this year’s competition have once again demonstrated a tremendous ability to channel their unique challenges into inspiration, by creating apps that will help them and their peers seize their potential inside and outside the classroom. I’m tremendously proud of every participant in this year’s challenge, and cannot wait to see where their talents take them.”
John Burroughs High School’s Liam Peak won first place for his app “Addvent,” a scheduling and productivity platform. Joon-Hyung (Daniel) Noh, Hyukju (Justin) Lee, and Isaac Seo from North Hollywood High School, Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies, and Cathedral High School, respectively, took second place for their app “Clockwise,” which helps students stay on top of their schedules and schoolwork. La Cañada High School’s Jessica Simonian took third place for her app “ToDoll,” which helps users keep track of their lives and set personal goals.
Dr. Anjali Tripathi, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, served as this year’s judge.
More information about the 2022 winners and their submissions can be found below:
FIRST PLACE: LIAM PEAK – ADDVENT
Liam Peak is a senior at John Burroughs High School in Burbank. His app, Addvent, is a scheduling and productivity platform.
Addvent has two lists: one labeled "personal" and the other labeled "community". These two lists allow the user to add a goal or plan, called an event, which encourage the user to either create events that benefit themselves or their community. Once the user adds an event, they can cross it off once it's completed or delete it from the list. After the user creates their first goal, the details of the goal (title, description, and date) are displayed on the home page for convenience and are updated if another event is created that is due sooner. Addvent also has a calendar used to assign events to a specific date and provides options for an event to be added every day, week, month, or year. In addition, the user is able to check his progress on his events based on number of total events completed, personal events completed, community events completed, event streak, and achievements completed. From the progress page, the user can also view their achievements and whether or not they have completed them. Lastly, the purpose of the progress and achievements page are to motivate the user to complete events.
Click here to watch Liam demo Addvent.
SECOND PLACE: JOON-HYUNG NOH, HYUKJU LEE, AND ISAAC SEO – CLOCKWISE
Joon-Hyung (Daniel) Noh, Hyukju (Justin) Lee, and Isaac Seo are juniors at North Hollywood High School, Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies, and Cathedral High School, respectively. Their app, Clockwise, helps students stay on top of their schedules and schoolwork.
Clockwise focuses on two aspects of a student's school life: time and workload management. Through their app, you can see how much time there is before a class begins. They do this through customizable cells that show a class name and a timer that displays how much time is left before a class starts. When creating a new class cell, users can input the class name and start time, which will then show up on the cell as a timer that counts down until it is time for the class to start. After clicking on any cell, the app will introduce the user to a new screen that displays a to-do list with all the work they need for the class. Although many physical and online planners are available, they are typically inconvenient and inaccessible in many situations. However, this app is accessible as long as a working device is available, with a simple interface accessible to students of all ages.
Click here to watch Daniel, Justin, and Isaac demo Clockwise.
THIRD PLACE: JESSICA SIMONIAN – TODOLL
Jessica Simonian is a freshman at La Cañada High School. Her app, ToDoll, is an organizational platform that aims to boost people’s productivity, specifically students, and help them keep track of their lives and set personal goals.
Users can use a simple to-do list to easily plan out their day. Furthermore, they can set reminders and due dates, color-code, and prioritize their reminders. Users can also set short and long-term goals, and set up a plan on how they will reach their goals, which is important because it helps create good habits, measure progress, keep users motivated, and guide their life with specific focuses. Finally, there is also a journal where users can document their progress in achieving their goals, their journey of self-improvement, or if the user wants to journal about their day/life.
Click here to watch Jessica demo ToDoll.
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