Bronx Science NHS wins Rep. Ritchie Torres’s 2023 Congressional App Challenge in New York’s 15th District

When asked what inspired the creation of Bronx Science NHS, the student said, “I joined the National Honor Society in my junior year of high school. I noticed that the organization could be made more efficient, and when I was selected to be Vice President of Technology, I realized I could use my app development skills to automate many tasks that NHS officers do manually.

NHS is an organization with hundreds of student-volunteers that provides free tutoring to all students, assistance to teachers, and facilitates school events. NHS volunteers earn credits by participating in volunteer opportunities. NHS Members are required to earn 2 project credits each semester (obtained by volunteering at school events), 10 service credits (obtained by assisting teachers with tasks), and 10 tutoring credits (obtained by tutoring their classmates).

The app automates the process of signing up for volunteer opportunities, tracking credits, and matching students to tutors. Previously, NHS officers posted Google Forms on Google Classroom that volunteers filled out to sign up for events. NHS officers then manually looked through the forms and created a roster of volunteers, assigning them different roles at the event based on the volunteers’ preference. For a large event like a school Open House, this process takes several hours.

The app also simplifies taking attendance. At smaller volunteer opportunities, event organizers used to take attendance on a sheet of paper which they would email us. Then, we needed to manually input credits into our spreadsheet. At larger events, we scanned student ID numbers and used a spreadsheet formula to award credits, but the process of scanning 200 student’s IDs can be disorganized and time consuming. We even once had an issue where the scanner malfunctioned, preventing us from taking attendance.”