Missoula high school computer science students have developed an app-concept that’s taken top honors in a statewide competition. They now need Montanans to help them advance in a national contest.
Sentinel High School sophomore Preston Stevens was part of a student team that participated in the Verizon Innovative Learning App Challenge. Their challenge? Create an app that solves a problem in Montana. Stevens says his team looked no further than the local public school system’s own website.
"The websites and the apps that we have are inaccessible and we wanted to make it better so it’s easier for the students and teachers to work," says Stevens.
Stevens and his teammates worked out ideas to make it easier to navigate and interact with the system. They also had to create a video explaining everything.
It took the competition’s ‘Best in State award’ and won $5,000 for Sentinel’s computer science program. The next step is the national competition. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) engineers will help the winning team turn their concept into an actual app, and their school will win an additional $215,000.
The winner will be selected by a vote. To help the Sentinel team win the national prize, simply text the code for the Classroom Assistant app concept CLASSASST to 22333 using a mobile device by midnight on February 14.