Annie Wright Wins Verizon App Challenge
A team of six students from Annie Wright Middle School designed an app which won Best in State for Washington in the Verizon Innovative Learning App Challenge.
A nationwide contest in which middle and high school students develop concepts for mobile apps that solve a problem in their community, the challenge teaches collaboration, critical thinking, problem solving, and entrepreneurship, as well as STEM skills and coding.
"Hope, Love, Care was based on a problem that my family and I were struggling with," said 8th grader Julia Henning. "My grandpa was in the hospital in California, and since both my dad and uncle live out of state, it was very hard to stay updated on his health condition. An app like this would have made it much easier."
Another team member, Ranbir Pental, described overcoming challenges in the project. "We weren't sure how updates of each patient would be organized and how the signup, login and patient codes to enter in a blog would all be set up to create the final project," he said. "I guess when we talked about it, it sounded really complicated and hard, but then we sketched out each screen on a white board and took it from there step by step."
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A nationwide contest in which middle and high school students develop concepts for mobile apps that solve a problem in their community, the challenge teaches collaboration, critical thinking, problem solving, and entrepreneurship, as well as STEM skills and coding.
The winning team designed the app "Hope, Love, Care” to facilitate communication between patients and their friends, families, and medical caregivers. Team members included Grade 8 students Julia Henning, Lauren Jangard, Ananya Kukreja, Ranbir Pental, Emily Smith, and Connor Stockton, and their advisor was design teacher and Assistant Director of Middle School Clare Wagstaff.
"Hope, Love, Care was based on a problem that my family and I were struggling with," said 8th grader Julia Henning. "My grandpa was in the hospital in California, and since both my dad and uncle live out of state, it was very hard to stay updated on his health condition. An app like this would have made it much easier."
Another team member, Ranbir Pental, described overcoming challenges in the project. "We weren't sure how updates of each patient would be organized and how the signup, login and patient codes to enter in a blog would all be set up to create the final project," he said. "I guess when we talked about it, it sounded really complicated and hard, but then we sketched out each screen on a white board and took it from there step by step."
All Grade 8 students participated in this project, which started in September. A key and time-consuming component was focusing on the community problem that needed to be solved. "They dove into every task, kept to every deadline and were very thoughtful in all aspects of the competition," said Wagstaff of the winning team. "What particularly impressed me about this group is that they genuinely care about the problem they were trying to solve."
Other groups submitted a variety of app concepts including "Speak Out" to anonymously report bullying, "Preprep" to help prepare for natural disasters, "Donation Station" to facilitate blood and bone marrow donations to leukemia patients, "Right Choice" to compare choices for schools, and "Cringe Check" to prevent inappropriate social media posts.
Other groups submitted a variety of app concepts including "Speak Out" to anonymously report bullying, "Preprep" to help prepare for natural disasters, "Donation Station" to facilitate blood and bone marrow donations to leukemia patients, "Right Choice" to compare choices for schools, and "Cringe Check" to prevent inappropriate social media posts.
