Continuum wins Rep. Steven Horsford’s 2021 Congressional App Challenge in Nevada’s Fourth District

Rep. Steven Horsford has named Brandon Bird of Nevada State High School, Travis Leavitt of Nevada State High School, and Jacob Mann of Shadow Ridge High School as the winners of the 2021 Congressional App Challenge in Nevada’s Fourth District.

When asked what inspired the creation of Continuum, the students said, “What inspired my team and me to create this app/game is wanting to help people learn. We were all sitting one day in the spa thinking of ideas and then the TV outside had an ad play that was talking about how we need to donate money so people in poverty can go to college. So we got to thinking and so we decided on something really awesome. We wanted to make an app that people would not be bound to their current situations. So they can learn and access all sorts of resources from a single place. So what this means is that no matter what your background is you should not have to be bound to what your education is. So we made Continuum, the first 3D inspiring learning game/app. Which allows you to learn a wide variety of things and get cosmetic items whilst doing it. So not only are you getting a great experience with instructors, but you are also having a great experience learning. Not to mention people will be inspired by various things like cosmetics and meeting people which will inspire you to learn.”

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.