Sit Straight! wins Rep. Grace Meng’s 2022 Congressional App Challenge in New York’s Sixth District
Rep. Grace Meng has named Vincent Yip, an 11th Grader at Townsend Harris High School, as the winner of the 2022 Congressional App Challenge in New York’s Sixth District.
When asked what inspired the creation of Sit Straight!, the student said, ”Your posture, the way you hold your body when sitting or standing, is the foundation of every movement your body makes and determines how well your body adapts to the stresses placed on it. Poor posture inflicts extra wear and tear on your joints and ligaments, increases the likelihood of accidents, and makes some organs, like your lungs, less efficient. Keeping proper posture is important, but it’s getting harder these days. Using computers and mobile devices promote poor posture as they make you look down at the screen in a stationary position for extended periods. With over 75% of Americans spending their days sitting at a desk staring at a computer screen, it is no surprise that more and more people are suffering from back pain and poor posture. I suffer from poor posture myself and while I am aware that I have bad posture, it is extremely hard to self-correct by yourself because you may not always be aware of your posture. I wanted to create an app that would serve as a pair of second eyes to remind people to correct their posture because I know first-hand how difficult it is to correct your posture by yourself. The ultimate goal of this app is to improve people’s quality of life and health through getting them to sit straight and properly.”
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.