App Challenge

What is the Congressional App Challenge?

Congressman Frank Guinta's second Annual Congressional App Challenge (CAC) is open to all high school students, regardless of educational experience, in New Hampshire's First District.  It is designed to provide American high school students with a valuable opportunity to learn programming concepts, entrepreneurial lessons, and valuable STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) skills. Congress recognizes STEM skills are important for growth and innovation, and encourages youth to promote jobs and future United States ingenuity. The competition allows congressmen to grow closer with their constituents and to become more familiar with the technologies themselves. It also enables Rep. Guinta and staffers to recognize and showcase their district’s talent and to connect with tomorrow’s innovators. The overarching goal of the Challenge is to expose high school students to coding and to get them engaged and excited about computer science.

The competition runs from July 18 until November 2, 2016. Local judges selected by the representative offices will test apps and select a winner from each district, who will be recognized and honored by their Congressman. Winners will receive a trip to Washington, D.C. to participate in an awards ceremony and present their apps to Members of Congress and industry leaders. Apps will be judged based on the quality of the idea, including creativity and originality, as well as implementation of the idea, including user experience and design and demonstrated excellence of coding and programming skills.

What is an app?

The word “app” is short for “application”, meaning software that can run on a variety of electronic devices (internet, computer, smartphone, etc.) For the sake of this competition, the general use of the word refers to software designed for mobile devices, rather than web apps or computer apps. These programs can serve a wide variety of purposes, and students have free choice for their design under the given criteria.

What are the rules?

• Students are only eligible to compete in districts that have signed up to compete in the Challenge
• Students must be eligible to attend high school within the district they are competing in
• If a student attends school outside of their home congressional district, the may compete in either their home or school district
• Students may compete as individuals or in teams of up to four (4), as long as at least two (2) of the students reside within the district in which they are competing
• Apps must be original, appropriate, and have been completed within the last calendar year before the Challenge closing date (November 2, 2016)
• After the submission period has ended, the submission cannot be modified in any way before the completion of judging
• All submissions must be in English
• All submissions must not be illegal, indecent, defamatory, in obvious bad taste, violate the Intellectual Property, common law or privacy rights of other parties, demonstrate a lack of respect for public morals or conduct, or adversely affects the reputation of congressional districts

What are the requirements?

• Students may begin working on their apps as soon as they like, but the “Competition Submission Period” will start at 12:00 PM (noon) Eastern Daylight Time (“EDT”), July 18, 2016 and be closed at 12:00 AM (midnight) Eastern Standard Time (“EST”) November 2, 2016.
• Each contestant will be required to submit the following:
  • A link to the Application Demonstration Video, using either YouTube or VIMEO
    • Use this video to demonstrate the scope and quality of your application
    • No more than two minutes in length
  • A link to the Developer Video, using either YouTube or VIMEO
    • Describe how the student created the app and what they learned
    • No more than one minute in length
  • An entry form

How Will a Winner be Chosen?

• Application demonstration videos will be viewed by District Judges, and finalists will be judged again on the given criteria
  • Quality of the idea (including creativity and originality)
  • Implementation of the idea (including user experience and design)
  • Demonstrated excellence of coding and programming skills

Please visit this link to submit your app or find out more about the submission process and rules.

Winners

The winners of the Congressional App Challenge will be recognized and honored by their Member of Congress. They'll have their app displayed on the Congressional App Challenge website, and winners will also have their apps exhibited on a digital display in the Capital Building for the year following the conclusion of the Challenge.