Every Vote Counts to help Western Hills win Verizon app challenge

Western Hills Middle School's after school STEM club was chosen as Rhode Island’s "Best in State" for the Verizon App. This is the fourth year in a row the school has taken this title. Faculty advisors Michael Blackburn and John Worthington dedicate hours to running the club after school, and around 100 students are participating in the club this year. Western Hills Middle School will be awarded $5,000, and each student on the team will receive a mobile tablet for being the “Best in State.”

To win the “Fan Favorite” competition, the team needs to gather votes on their video. If they gather the most votes, the school will receive a $15,000 cash prize, in-person coding training from MIT experts to develop their concept into a working app, and an all-expenses-paid trip to the TSA conference in Orlando in June. The online Fan Favorites voting period started on Monday, January 16, and ends on February 14. People can vote once at appchallenge.tsaweb.org/vote.

This year's team consists of David Steets, Bella George, Olivia Martin, Christina Charie, Noah Ialongo, David Moretti and Sam Latzman. In this race, every vote counts.

The app they created as a team is called FoodFinder, and it is an app that the students came up with after a great deal of brainstorming, according to Ialongo.

"We had two weeks of really deep thought, trying to come up with ideas that would be winning ideas. Mr. Worthington was encouraging us to target app ideas that addressed problems everyone had," Ialongo said. "One day this idea just popped into my head and we decided to go with it."

According to the student-created commercial and information for the app found on the app challenge website (appchallenge.tsaweb.org/vote/8224) "Food Finder is an app designed to help everyday families save money on their groceries by eliminating the need to cut coupons and comparison shop. The user enters his/her shopping list, then Food Finder will determine where the user should shop to save the most money."

"The students were really looking for an app to create that would be universal, to help the average, everyday families who are paycheck to paycheck, so that they could save money," said Blackburn. "They realized that everyone needs to eat and everyone needs to buy groceries, and that many don't have the time to comparison shop the circulars and cut the coupons. This app would solve those problems."

According to Latzman, the research the students did during their time together showed that 76 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and that many families have less than $500 in a savings account and therefore are trying to save money any way they can.

"This is a way for members of the community to get better prices, coupons and deals on everyday groceries, including produce," said Steets.

"This app takes what’s your list, what you buy, what you spend, finds the best deals and tells you where you should go," said George.

Moretti emphasized that the app also factors in gas mileage and car types to advise users the best, most cost-effective way to do their shopping in order to save the most money and doesn't sacrifice quality for a good deal.

"It factors in quality so that you're not just paying money for cheap food," he said.

A feedback and reviews section has been included in the app so that community members can see what others are saying if a good deal has been found, for example. Martin said she's polled some adults she knows who do their family's grocery shopping, and many agree that there is a need for such an app.

"I've talked to lots of parents who said they would definitely use this app if it existed," she said.

Helping those who are struggling was a definite goal of the team when they brainstormed their ideas.

"We really want to help people who are struggling to afford their groceries. We want to help them find the best deals," Charie said.

Blackburn reflects on the amount of time, energy and dedication that was put into this competition, something not all students everywhere might be willing to do.

"They worked on this for about eight weeks, and they worked during our after school STEM club hours, but they put in much more time than that," Blackburn said. "They did video chats, they met outside of school, they had Skype calls, they put in a lot of hours, and at times I think they worked all hours of the night."

The students also had to prepare a script and a commercial to include with their voting page, and it can be seen on the app challenge website. To vote, fans are asked to text FOODFIND to 22333. To watch the commercial visit appchallenge.tsaweb.org/vote/8224.