Some Americans go their whole lives never stepping foot in the country’s capital district: Washington D.C. Even fewer Americans get to travel free of expense to present an app they designed to US Congressmen. That is what makes the Congressional App Challenge such an incredible opportunity for middle and high school students across the nation, including the winning group from Chamblee High School.
Four students in Ms. Miller’s engineering class created an app that won first place in Hank Johnson’s Fourth Congressional District. Emma Lane and her group created Voting Buddy, an app that aims to help young adults in Georgia register and be informed about voting all in one place.
“[Voting Buddy is] meant to help first-time voters and people who have special circumstances, like people in the armed services, [register and be informed about voting],” said Lane. “Most of the stuff that already exists focuses on campaigns and getting information about who you can vote for. The only information we could find on how to vote and how to register [to vote] was on the government websites, but the [information] was spread out across twenty different pages, so [Voting Buddy is] just one… single app.”
Ella King (‘26) was part of the team that created the Voting Buddy app to submit to the Congressional App Challenge.
“The Congressional App Challenge is a nationwide competition that encourages students to create their own digital apps, and then you submit [them] to the app challenge, and then per district, [there’s] a first, second, [and] third place,” said King. “[Our] app, Voting Buddy, won for Hank Johnson’s Fourth Congressional District, [in] first place. The first-place winners of the National App Challenge are invited to [D.C. to present in US Congress].”
Nick Jovanovic (‘27) said he and his three teammates originally entered the Congressional App Challenge after Ms. Miller offered the opportunity to their class, but had low expectations because of the amount of participants across the nation.
“We didn’t really think we were gonna win because we were like, ‘Oh, there are so many other people,’ [so] we were surprised when we got first place,” said Jovanovic.
Winning groups from districts all over the country presented in the US Congress on April 8th and 9th, over spring break. During the group’s trip to Washington D.C., Mary Lawton Jones (‘27), the fourth group member from CHS, said they met Senator Jon Ossoff (GA) and received an exclusive tour of the US Congress Building.
“[The Congressional Staffers] took us on a tour of the Capitol Building, which was cool,” said Jones. “We got to sit in on the Senate voting on something, [and] we got to see the old Senate gallery and the old Supreme Court chamber.”
After the tour, the Voting Buddy group, as well as approximately 120 other winning app groups, set up tri-fold boards and tables for their presentations. Ella King felt that the whole expo experience, specifically when she and her group members were able to walk around to see other groups’ presentations, was the most impactful for her.
“People would come by [to our table] and we would just talk to anyone who would come up,” said King. “What I really liked seeing was everyone else because there were app winners from across the nation. It was really cool to see what other students my age are doing.”
Winning the Congressional App Challenge also waives copyright fees for the students’ apps, so if the students decide to take the apps to the app store, they could do so. King said their group hadn’t decided yet if they were going to expand on and go further with Voting Buddy.
“We can apply for the copyright for free. If we were to revise it, we would branch out to all 50 states and not just focus on Georgia,” said King.
Because Voting Buddy doesn’t have its copyright yet, it’s not a downloadable app; however, the group may decide to make it a nationwide platform, informing young American voters about everything from local candidates to polling places to political parties and their values.
The Congressional App Challenge is a prestigious competition to win, and it was an incredible opportunity for these four Chamblee engineering students.
