U.S. Rep. Richard Neal visited Agawam High School on Jan. 13 to present students Matilda Larochelle, Aiden Jordan and Justin Barbaneagra (pictured left to right) with a first-place Congressional App Challenge award for a new writing app they developed.
Reminder Publishing photo by Mike Lydick
AGAWAM — Three Agawam High School students recently won a Congressional App Challenge for developing a journaling app that can serve as a safe space for students and a way to improve their level of writing.
U.S. Rep. Richard Neal (D-Springfield) visited the school on Jan. 13 to present Matilda Larochelle, Aiden Jordan and Justin Barbaneagra with a first-place award for their app, Journal N’ Go. It rewards users for daily journaling and allows space for creative writing of a student’s day while also providing benefits if they choose to login consistently.
Larochelle and Jordan, both seniors, along with Barbaneagra, a ninth grader, created the app in an afterschool club, the AHS Programming Team. The three spent about a month working in the club and at home to develop and test Journal N’ Go.
Because the website they used to make app, code.org, didn’t allow more than one person to edit it, Jordan — the programmer and visionary behind the app — was the only person who could make changes outside of the programming club. While in the club, Jordan would take ideas and debugging tips from Barbaneagra and artwork from Larochelle.
Jordan said he got the idea for Journal N’ Go because he always had issues staying committed to journaling apps.
“I decided to make this app a bit more fun for students like me,” he said.
The app is designed so that if students log in consistently and create a streak, they will keep points earned from going negative. If they don’t log in consistently, they will lose points. Points can be used to shop for benefits, such as additional customization of their journal.
Their goal was to create an app that students would want to use, added Larochelle. “Taking a general survey from our programming team the Notes app on our phones was voted most useful,” she said. “A problem we sought to solve was that there was a lack of incentive to continue journaling.”
She said they decided have a reward system for their journaling app similar to that of Duolingo, a popular app used to learn foreign languages.
“The other benefits of this app are improved writing skills, such as faster typing and advanced vocabulary. Additionally, it can help by letting students get better sleep through aiding as a therapeutic resource,” she said.
Larochelle’s roles in the development was as the creative director, video producer and team leader.
“I made our video submission, wrote our essays to submit and designed our poster to represent our app. We didn’t really have to divide the work since it fell into place. Aiden prefers coding over writing and knows Java Script, whereas I know C++ and Python, which our other members did not know much about compared to Java Script,” said Larochelle.
Barbaneagra said he contributed to the development by making some “bug fixes” that saved time along with making some suggestions for the app — such as turning dropdowns into buttons, adding a confirmation to reset a journal and a few other ideas.
“This app should motivate people to write about their personal feelings or plan things ahead, something a bland regular notepad doesn’t do much” he said.
“This app shows that AHS students can engage in real world problem solving and skill development while building perseverance and resilience though productive struggle in meaningful tasks,” said AHS Principal Jim Blain.
“I know very little about coding, so it was difficult for me to comprehend the knowledge base and skill set it takes to go from a conceptual idea to a coded program that beat out all other entries,” Blain said. “After meeting with the students and Matt Stinson, the teacher advisor to the club, I was blown away by their commitment to the challenge, as well as their submission.”
Stinson, who teaches several technology classes, said the award makes him proud as an instructor and speaks to the reason why he got into teaching. “The students put in long hours inside and outside of school to create this application. It was truly a team effort. The students came up with the idea. They felt creating a journaling app that rewards entries would be both creative and original.”
The goal of the CAC competition is to: inspire students to explore STEM, coding and computer science through hands-on practice while actively including and engaging students from communities that are traditionally underrepresented in the tech community. The challenge also is a way to innovate policymaking by connecting members of Congress to new and emerging technologies through personal interactions with their student constituents.
“In a society where technology has become an integral part of our everyday lives, the need for professionals in the STEM field is more important now than ever,” said Neal during the award presentation. “I am grateful to the administration, faculty and staff at Agawam High School for providing their students the opportunity to gain valuable experience in a field with great potential.”
Neal said while students are often celebrated for their athletic achievements, it is equally important to recognize them for their academic skills. “Matilda, Aiden and Justin have demonstrated their superb talent in coding and computer science — skills that will greatly benefit them in their future careers.”
The app will be featured in the U.S. Capitol and Larochelle and Jordan will be invited to a “House of Code” celebration in April. The copyright registration application fees also are waived through the ARTS Act, allowing the three students to register their app with the U.S. Copyright Office. The link to the CAC page is congressionalappchallenge.us.
