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Students sweep national app-making competition
Waukesha West High School students swept a national app-making competition – and also tried to reverse an industry trend.
WAUKESHA, Wis. - Waukesha West High School students swept a national app-making competition – and also tried to reverse an industry trend.
The competition's top winners were girls. Women hold a small percentage of computer science jobs, and the winning students could help change that.
When Erin Kristich finished coding her app, she got a notification that blew her mind.
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"I just looked at my iPad and this email popped – and it said, ‘You got first,’" she said. "There was absolutely no way this happened to me."
Kristich’s app, called "I Spy," took first place in a contest sponsored by the group Uncharted Learning. The competition was open to 45 schools across the country.
Waukesha West students sweep national app-making competition
Students in Brandon Egnarski’s Waukesha West "application development" class dominated the competition – claiming the top three spots, plus one honorable mention. Teens had to not only create their own app from scratch, they also had to present a tutorial which was judged by a panel of professional app developers.
"To see that they can actually do this and are capable of being successful is just great for their confidence, whether they want to go into a career in programming or not," he said.
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When student Emma Bichler found out her calculator app took second place, she quickly realized another pattern: "It was good to know there were other girls out there, too, who like code."
There is an industry push to get more girls interested in coding. According to the group Girls Who Code, only 26% of computer science professionals are women. Egnarski may have cracked that code; he said the number of girls in his class has grown in recent years.
Students in Brandon Egnarski’s Waukesha West "application development" class
"A lot of girls maybe aren’t very open, it’s not really the social standard that girls are in the STEM field," said Egnarski. "The more women and girls that come through this door, they see that they are very capable of doing this and there’s a spot for them to belong."
The competition was also a big sweep for the school district; two students from North High School got honorbale mentions, too. The first-place winner receives one-on-one mentoring with a software developer.