I Pooped There wins Rep. Victoria Spartz’s 2023 Congressional App Challenge in Indiana’s Fifth District
Rep. Spartz has named Jackie Wei of Piedmont Hills High School and Jasper Zhu of Carmel High School as the winners of the 2023 Congressional App Challenge in Indiana’s Fifth District.
When asked what inspired the creation of I Pooped There, the students said, “We both love traveling to new locations, but one problem that always hits us when we are outside is the lack of access to clean, safe public bathrooms. Unsanitary bathrooms make for unpleasant bathroom experiences and increase the likelihood of users contracting diseases. For example, just recently, one of our group members contracted norovirus from using an unclean public bathroom, which gave him diarrhea and stomach pain for several days. Also recently, while traveling together on a road trip with a family friend who had a baby, we noticed how our family friend often struggled to find bathrooms with access to a diaper changing station for her baby, as many public bathrooms do not have one. These two problems revealed to us the prevalent issue of the lack of quality public bathrooms and inspired us to create I Pooped There: a platform where users can help each other locate the best, most suitable public restrooms.”
This year’s Challenge saw an unprecedented level of participation, with 374 Members of the House of Representatives hosting competitions, surpassing the previous record of 340. A remarkable 11,334 students from across the United States competed in this year’s Challenge, marking an impressive increase of nearly 1,000 participants compared to the previous record set in 2019. The enthusiasm and creativity these students display is a testament to the growing interest in technology and signal a bright future for American innovation. The surge of ingenuity continued with a whopping 3,645 original applications flooding in, nearly a thousand more than the previous year’s high. This remarkable growth showcases the exceptional talent and innovation within our nation’s youth.
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. This resounding show of bipartisan support emphasizes the critical importance of STEM education in today’s rapidly evolving world. 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 2024 Congressional App Challenge will launch in May of 2024, and eligible students can pre-register for the competition now.