Technology students at East Middle School are moving on after being awarded as finalists of the BOCES at the Broome-Tioga BOCES app challenge.
Their app concept "Tutor Time" helps students stay on top of and hand in assignments, and includes an AI chatbot to help them study and offer limited assignment hints within the app.
The team of 7th graders Rocco Vetrino, Nolan Schreiber, Avar Izzat and Azar Izzat have decided to move on to the congressional level competition, where they will develop a functional version of the application. For this, the students will need to use coding for the majority of the project.
“I’m excited for it,” Vetrino said. “I definitely want to do this later in life, it was fun.”
The Congressional App Challenge is an annual competition for middle and high school students to submit original software applications that help a real-world community of their choosing.
A winning app is selected from all participating congressional districts, with winners eligible to be displayed in the U.S. Capitol and the House of Representatives' website. The competition serves to promote STEM and computer science education among middle and high school students.
Congressman Josh Riley was present for the Broome-Tioga BOCES App Challenge awards ceremony on March 9.
“The app inspires the students to explore STEAM, coding, and computer science; it also connects to computer science and digital fluency learning standards,” said East Middle School technology teacher Lien Ha, who is overseeing the students in developing the app.
“The students get the chance to enhance workforce skills, engagement and awareness of issues facing the community.”
The fully functional app will be due in Fall 2026.
Another East Middle School team of Aurorasky Rivera and Trinity Griffin were also a top 5 finalist in 2023.