Pick-A-Trip USA wins Rep. David G. Valadao’s 2021 Congressional App Challenge in California’s 21st District
Rep. David G. Valadao has named Zachary Ergo and Carson Yakligian from Kingsburg High School as the winners of the 2021 Congressional App Challenge in California’s 21st District.
When asked what inspired the creation of Pick-A-Trip USA, the students said, “Our interest in travel and visiting historical locations inspired me to make this app. While on a trip to Washington D.C, We were able to visit many of the historical sites included in this app. We have always been fascinated by unusual natural occurrences and intricate architecture. We wanted to share our travel interests with other people who may be confused as to where they would like to go.”
The 2021 Congressional App Challenge yielded 2,101 fully functioning apps. After eighteen months of disruptions to educational cadences for students everywhere, the Congressional App Challenge came roaring back with 7,174 students registering for this year’s competition. All told, 340 Members of Congress hosted Congressional App Challenges in their districts across 50 states, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Mariana Islands, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Washington, D.C.
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, theCoderSchool, Facebook, Replit, Accenture, and others.
The 2022 Congressional App Challenge will launch in June of 2022, and eligible students can pre-register for the competition now.