StreBit wins Rep. Bruce Westerman’s 2022 Congressional App Challenge in Arkansas’s Fourth District
Rep. Bruce Westerman has named Vicky Zhu, a 12th Grader at Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts, as the winner of the 2022 Congressional App Challenge in Arkansas’s Fourth District.
When asked what inspired the creation of StreBit, the student said, ”Flexibility is important to the human body because it helps with reducing the risk of injuries and muscle soreness. One day, I was walking up and down the stairs way too much that I had a cramp on my calves that night. Because of the cramp, I started stretching daily. Stretching really helped, and I never had a cramp again. Afterwards, I want to spread the importance of stretching and help others to develop a habit of stretching daily. I decided to make an app. I started with the stand and reach test. It is a test that everyone knows and is able to do because all it requires is standing straight and then bending over. Stand and reach is one specific flexibility test for hamstrings. One of the functions of hamstrings is controlling hip movements. By improving hamstring flexibility, it will make performing daily tasks easier. My goal for the app is that users would use the app daily, and eventually benefit from the app.”
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.