SmartVolly wins Rep. Greg Steube’s 2023 Congressional App Challenge in Florida’s 17th District
Rep. Steube has named Henry Zhou, Kuentsen Dorji, and Marlowe Meredith of Pine View as the winners of the 2023 Congressional App Challenge in Florida’s 17th District.
When asked what inspired the creation of SmartVolly, the students said, “Our club, the Pine View Entrepreneur Club, wanted to create a product that could solve a global problem using our members’ extensive STEM knowledge while also putting into the practice our entrepreneurial skills. We saw a massive problem in damage caused around the world by home fires. Billions of dollars of damages as well as thousands of people are injured or killed in house fires yearly. Our group agreed that the current fire safety industry lacked a method of automatically detecting and extinguishing a home fire for everyday home owners. While fire sprinkler systems do address this issue, they are expensive and usually designed primarily for larger buildings. They can also cause water damage to sensitive equipment. Fire extinguishers are manual, and fire alarms can’t extinguish fires. Our solution to this problem was our club product SmartVolly, a cheap automatic fire detector and extinguisher that detects fires in front of the device using temperature readings and extinguishes them using a fire retardant powder to avoid water damage. We created an app that pairs alongside this device so the owner has access to temperature readings from the device, threshold settings, and the ability to manually set off the device.”
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.