Avni Gupta, 9th Grade student at WHS was named as the winner of the 2019 Congressional App Challenge for the Connecticut 4th District. Her app, the Food Allergy Scanner uses a cellphone’s camera to scan barcodes on food items and alerts the user if there are any allergens associated with the user’s profile.
“Every year, I am inspired by the talented and thoughtful submissions through the Congressional App Challenge,” Congressman Jim Himes said. “The advanced programming and digital skills our students are learning in today’s schools are preparing them to succeed in future STEM careers. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the House as well as with Connecticut educators to continue advancing these important lessons.”
This annual challenge is hosted by the House of Representatives to inspire high schoolers to explore coding with hands-on practice and to include underrepresented communities and women into the technology field. In its third year in Connecticut’s Fourth District, the competition drew a record number of entries.
The CAC is open to all middle and high school students in the Fourth District.
Avni came across the Congressional App Challenge one day while browsing the internet. Her choice of app to create was influenced by her first-hand experience with food allergies. “My little brother has multiple severe food allergies, so I've witnessed how difficult grocery shopping can be. The ingredient labels on so many food products are incredibly small and sometimes use obscure synonyms to refer to common foods. As a result, it's very easy to make a mistake reading the ingredient labels, and that can lead to hospitalization or even death for someone with food allergies. I wanted to make sure that no one suffered just because they couldn't read 4 point type.”
“The easiest part of making the app was probably the front-end, or the part that users would see and interact with. The back-end, the coding behind the scenes, was a lot harder. One of the hardest parts of making the app was getting it to launch the barcode scanner, and then to use the barcode to find information about the product. I also had some trouble identifying incomplete information in the product database.”
The next stop for Avni will be Washington DC. All winning students are invited to the #HourOfCode, Capitol Hill Reception to be held in spring next year. All winning apps are eligible to be displayed in the US Capital Building and will be featured on the House of Representatives’ website.