Congressional App Challenge winners present their ideas at Glasgow High

GLASGOW, Ky. (WBKO) - Each year, Congressman Brett Guthrie, R-KY, hosts the Congressional App Challenge to inspire students to develop their coding skills and unleash their creativity.

“To me it’s kind of important whether it’s the art competition or the app competition we’re doing now. We have a tremendous amount of talented young people so this really gives them the chance to shine, to show who they are and it shows that they are accomplishing big things,” Guthrie said.

This year’s overall first place winner, Emma Bunch, from Glasgow High created an app called “Cure” which she describes as an “all in one comprehensive app for cancer” that provides users with resources they will need to navigate a new cancer diagnosis.

Her presentation showed the ease of use of her app and the features it offers users. Bunch says she spent three months developing and coding her app and was inspired to create it through her desire of becoming a physician.

Grant Harper and Madeline Prichard, from Barren County High School, were a team that took overall second place in the competition.

Their app, “Smart-Q” was designed to provide a solution to the chaos of afternoon dismissal at school.

“Grant and I came up with this solution so that it was much easier and safer to get students home,” Prichard said.

Approximately 55 apps were submitted by area students for the competition and a panel of local computer science experts judged the entries to choose the winners.

This year’s submissions saw the highest participation rate by students since the challenge started in 2019.

The 2021 high school and middle school winners are:

• Overall First Place: Emma Bunch Glasgow High School Cure
• Overall Second Place: Grant Harper and Madeline Prichard Barren County High School Smart-Q
• Overall Third place: Alli Burgan, Matisse Dalton, Braxton Powers, Kyla Thomson Apollo High School and Daviess County High School Vocal
• Middle School First Place: Macy Hoback and Molly Johnson Hebron Middle School Women’s Rights Through History
• Middle School Second Place: Emilee LaFollette Hebron Middle School Fall Baking Madness
• Middle School Third Place: Jacob Goins and Micah Taylor Hebron Middle School Star Collector 1.0

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