Weather Map wins Rep. Jefferson Van Drew’s 2022 Congressional App Challenge in New Jersey’s Second District
Rep. Jefferson Van Drew has named Nathanael Gaw, an 11th Grader at Atlantic County Institute of Technology, as the winner of the 2022 Congressional App Challenge in New Jersey’s Second District.
When asked what inspired the creation of Weather Map, the student said, ”My older brother is an aspiring musician. He goes to many places to compete and he is currently attending college in Cleveland, OH. He plays the double bass, the biggest portable musical instrument besides the harp. As a result, either my dad or he himself has to drive to where he needs to go, as flying with a fragile and expensive double bass is quite complicated. They often tell me about the heavy rain, snow, sleet, hail, etc. they encounter when traveling a few states away or going to/from school. They wish there were some good apps to show the weather conditions along the way. Some of the apps we found on some weather websites were buggy, inflexible and not robust enough. I always wanted to come up with a solution for this problem because this problem cannot be only limited to a handful of people. Many people travel in their vehicles, and I am sure they all want to know the weather conditions along the way so that they can make a better judgment on when to leave and when to rest.”
The Congressional App Challenge smashed previous participation records in 2022. All told, 9,011 students registered for this year’s competition – creating 2,707 fully-functioning apps for 335 Members of Congress across 50 states, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Mariana Islands, American Samoa, and the District of Columbia. This year’s competition set the record for most student registrations, most apps submitted, most apps per district submitted, and most districts receiving over 20 apps. The wildly successful competition continues to impress upon House Members the importance of computer science education and the need to develop a pipeline of diverse, domestic STEM talent.
The Congressional App Challenge is an official initiative of the U.S. House of Representatives, where Members of Congress host contests in their districts for middle school and high school students, encouraging them to learn to code and inspiring them to pursue careers in computer science. Each participating Member of Congress selects a winning app from their district, and each winning team is invited to showcase their winning app to Congress during our annual #HouseOfCode festival. The program is a public-private partnership made possible through funding from Omidyar Network, AWS, Rise, theCoderSchool, Apple, and others.
The 2023 Congressional App Challenge will launch in June of 2023, and eligible students can pre-register for the competition now.