Congressional App Challenge

Here is a timeline of the app challenge:

• October 28: Congressional Offices can begin judging and submitting their winner. 
• November 22: The judging period concludes.
• December 31: Last day for Congressional offices to notify applicants of their status and announce their winner
• January 15, 2025: The Congressional App Challenge website will be updated with winners.
• Spring 2025: #HouseOfCode 2025! This annual event, held at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., will honor the winners from each Congressional district. Winners will have the opportunity to display their app and hear from Members of Congress.

1^st Place: Ved Shah - Downingtown STEM Academy (App: Slicer Tennis)

• Slicer is a mobile-based, tennis coaching platform that facilitates, analyzes, and tracks tennis drills using machine learning. Designed for recreational players of all ages and skill levels, the app allows users to upload/record videos of specific tennis drills and delivers detailed analysis of users' technique, offering quantitative, visual, and textual feedback. Whether practicing with or without a ball, users can receive customized pointers to improve their form, timing, and precision. This feedback includes scores for their Technique Accuracy, Consistency, Swing Speed, and Restarts; specific textual insights on the Take-back, Contact-point, and Follow-through parts of the tennis swing; and isolated video frames with arrows drawn for visual cues. The app offers a clear learning path, with six weekly drills targeting specific skills. These drills progressively increase in difficulty each week. Alternatively, users can select drills from a catalog for personalized practice at any time. The app tracks progress with scores for Average Technique, Average Consistency, and Overall Performance based on completed drills and performance over time.

2^nd Place: Jeffrey Wang & Rohan Anne - Conestoga High School (App: LemonadeChains)

• LemonadeChains is the place where curious kids can learn about options and practice options trading. With their app, users can learn the theoretical side of options and then apply them in their simulator. Their app has two segments: LemonadeLearn and the Simulator. LemonadeLearn is the classroom where new users learn the basics of options. Each article builds off the previous, guiding people through while allowing them to pick up where they left. The articles are written assuming the reader had no previous options knowledge, and they cover everything from terminology to example trades. The Simulator segment of the app gives users a way to apply their new knowledge. Their design is similar to real trading platforms, so users can switch to real trading platforms once they feel ready. In their app, users can search for stocks and view historical charts. They can view simple statistics that give stocks context. They can add interesting stocks to a watchlist. They can track portfolio performance. They can trade stocks like in traditional simulators. The goal is to get users comfortable with the market and give them good habits that will translate into the real world success in the market. To trade options, you open up a stock’s options chain. Chains contain the pricing and data of an option which looks like a wall of numbers which is overwhelming for new traders. We digest options chains with profit and loss graphs that turn numbers into pictures. Hovering over the graph gives the maximum loss, maximum gain, and break even price.

3^rd Place: Ishaan Joshi - Great Valley High School, Om Patel & Kevin Kokinda - Downingtown STEM Academy High School (App: CivicPulse)

• Using natural language processing to track public sentiment in real-time, CivicPulse encourages community engagement as it enhances the way the people’s voices are heard. We have learned from past events that marginalized groups have been historically underrepresented, even during periods of hardship that have disproportionately affected them. Taking this into account, we have integrated a translation system into Spanish to create a more universal platform where everyone can communicate effectively. The app features two main experiences: the user side and the admin side. Users are given key civic news such as political discussions which are broken into digestible key points with summaries outlining the implications. This can help them engage and understand posts akin to other social media platforms. This allows for deeper understanding and interaction with important topics. This app also includes a notification and calendar system to help users stay on track of upcoming events to streamline important information. This allows the user base to become more engaged with future topics. The app also tracks the township or locality a person resides in to prioritize relevant data first before expanding to a wider range. This way, we ensure that users receive the most impactful and timely information specific to them. On the admin side, civic leaders and policymakers can view feedback through emotion graphs and sentiment analysis to enable them to see how their actions are perceived and to hold themselves accountable to the public. CivicPulse also offers a comprehensive report system that tracks past and present events to allow administrators to review previous decisions to effectively deliver more informed and responsible future decisions. By making political information more digestible and feedback readily available, CivicPulse is meant to empower community members to have a more significant impact on civic issues, while also ensuring that politicians are more accountable through real-time feedback and recallable data. The platform thus fosters a transparent and responsive approach to governance.

Thank you to everyone for participating.