Davis Announces 2020 Congressional App Challenge Winner During National #CSEdWeek

Statement

U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) today, the first day of national Computer Science Education Week, announced the winner for the 2020 Congressional App Challenge (CAC) in the 13th District of Illinois. The winner is Trevin Vanhook, a student at Normal West High School, for his app called "The Funzone." The app demonstration and summary can be found below.

"Innovation and technology are driving forces of our economy," said Davis. "This competition promotes awareness of the vast opportunities that await those who explore an education and career in the STEM field. Congratulations to Trevin and all of this year's participants for their impressive submissions."

Judges for the CAC were individuals from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois and potential users of the students' apps. Apps were scored on three criteria: concept of the app, design of the app, and demonstration of coding/programming skills.

The CAC encourages high school students to learn how to code by creating their own applications. The 2020 competition had over 6,000 students participate with original apps submitted from over 300 Congressional districts across 47 states & territories.

The winner from each district get:

1. Winning app eligible to be featured in the Capitol Building

2. Winning app eligible to be put on http://House.gov (10 million visitors per year)

3. $75 Southwest Airlines gift card

4. Winners invited to #HouseOfCode Virtual Reception

App Summary: "My app is a horror thriller game, where at first your put into a situation where everything is nice and friendly, but quickly find out this isn't how the game is. It quickly glitches out and puts you into a foggy maze intentionally, where there are different monsters that can follow you around, pass around the maze, and some are unique and smart enough to trick you or act as something harmless where you wouldn't expect them to, or just jump out of the fog and scare you. The purpose of the game is to travel through the maze and find clues in the maze, and will overall allow you to make up the code that lets you open a door via a keycode numpad, which randomly generates the code you need to put in at the start of the game. But yeah that's pretty much what the app does and the whole point of the app is to give the user a scare and entertain the user by giving them a thrill."

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