Perceptron wins Rep. Scott Perry’s 2023 Congressional App Challenge in Pennsylvania’s 10th District
Rep. Perry has named Shunyu Tang, a 12th grader at Cumberland Valley High School, as the winner of the 2023 Congressional App Challenge in Pennsylvania’s 10th District.
When asked what inspired the creation of Perceptron, the student said, “Studying is not fun. Sitting at my desk for hours, staring at page after page is some boring work. Even as I finish, I am unsure whether I truly know all of the concepts. I need to be tested on them, to see where I stand. Although online services offer practice quizzes for virtually every discipline, they aren’t exactly what my notes cover. I want a study guide tailored to my notes. This is where I realized I could use AI to solve this problem. By instructing a large language model to generate questions for me, I can (1) get hands-on practice on concepts, and (2) save time thinking of questions myself. My handwriting is also not the greatest, so using optical character recognition to convert my handwriting to text is a tremendous lifesaver. That’s the foundation of Perceptron, an app that converts handwritten notes into an interactive study guide. I often see AI being criticized for helping students cheat. For some people, particularly teachers, all they see are the downsides of AI. So, another reason I made this app is to show that AI also has a good side, an educational side. Last but not least, I wanted an app that was easy to use and had a great aesthetic, free of unnecessary bloat or ads.”
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.