Everybody is a winner!

Innovative App Winners

Jefferson Township Middle School Winners

Ten teams of middle and high school students were named winners of the Verizon Innovative App Challenge, which challenged students to design apps that provide real-world solutions for issues in their communities. App highlights include:

■ Bronx Academy of Promise, NY: Quest Math, which helps students increase their speed in basic math computations through a mythology-themed game.

■ Emory H. Markle Intermediate, Hanover, PA: Voice Notes, which revolutionizes note-taking for students with disabilities and organizes information to create effective study guides.

■ Forney High School, Forney, TX: One|Place, which offers students, faculty, and the community one location to find details about upcoming school and community events.

■ Hampstead Academy, Hampstead, NH: Chow Checker, which easily identifies the ingredients of food products to help individuals with allergies avoid problem foods.

MIT will work with students of the winning teams to refine their projects and Verizon will provide training to help them bring their concepts to market. Each winning team’s school receives a $10,000 Verizon Foundation grant to advance STEM education, and each team member receives the new Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1. Find the complete list of winners at appchallenge.tsaweb.org

Vernier/NSTA Technology Awards

Christine HeraldCara Hale-Hanes Darrell Coston

Vernier and the NSTA honored seven educators with 2013 Vernier/NSTA Technology Awards. Each winner was formally recognized at this year’s annual NSTA conference and received $1,000 in cash, $3,000 in Vernier products, and up to $1,500 toward expenses to attend the conference.

Read about all of the 2013 winners at www.vernier.com/grants/nsta

Autism Speaks and AT&T Hackathon to Develop Mobile Apps

After 24 intense hours of “hacking” mobile apps at the Autism Hackathon, hosted by Autism Speaks and AT&T, Cyrus Stoller and Ryan Stevens took home the first place prize of $10,000. Below is a summary of their winning app, along with descriptions of the other winning apps from the contest that challenged developers to create technologies based on suggestions crowdsourced from the autism community.

The winning pair Cyrus Stoller (left) and Ryan Stevens.

First Place ($10,000): Puzzled is a Yelp-like review app for those with autism and their friends and families to use when looking for autism-friendly services. The app provides a map plotted with places for fun and utility, like restaurants, dentists, and hair salons.

Second Place ($5,000): Good List is an app that helps people across the autism spectrum identify what was good and bad about their day, thereby allowing caregivers to analyze the data so that they can isolate patterns and abnormalities.

Third Place ($2,500): Making Friends is a game-like interface that allows individuals on the spectrum to make social decisions and gives them feedback on how others might respond to their decisions, while helping them learn social skills.

Best Overall Autism App ($2,500): Playsplosion is a virtual environment that helps individuals on the autism spectrum relax during a sensory overload as they take care of virtual pets.

Read more about the winners at www.techlearning.com/may13.

“Got Game?” Contest

The STEM Fuse semi-annual “Got Game?” contest is back. The goal of “Got Game?” is to motivate aspiring young game developers to create new games. Prizes will be awarded for the top three games to the student-creators and their schools.