11th grader wins Congressional App Challenge

Congratulations to 11th grader Joanna for winning the Congressional App Challenge.

In this competition, members of the U.S. House of Representatives choose winning projects from teams that create outstanding apps.

Joanna partnered with a cousin who attends from Choate Rosemary Hall to create Stress Scope, which measures a user’s stress and provides tips to help manage high levels of it. To create the app, they used Java and Android Studio.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro named the duo winners in Connecticut’s Third District.

The inspiration for the app began last year, when the two students performed an international research survey for high school students about the impacts of mental health from the pandemic. They realized that students still had lingering effects but weren’t seeking help.

“We wanted to create something that benefits not only ourselves or our peers but the broader population by providing effective yet accessible methods of measuring stress and resources to attenuate its compounding manifestations,” she said.

They began working on the app over the summer while she was on vacation in Korea.

The app measures and provides feedback on parameters such as heart rate, respiratory rate, and a stress score from the a series of questions, and presents relaxation techniques.

They submitted their app to the Connecticut congressional district of Choate, because the Texas district that includes Keystone didn’t participate in the challenge.