"Be the Change"

Social Justice App Contest

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** Teens must be registered for both the App Contest and for Teen Summer Reading to participate.

 

 

What is it?

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   The Cupertino Library and Math & Coding Organization are teaming up this summer to bring teens, ages 13 – 18, the “Teen App Design Challenge – Be the Change.”

    This contest is designed to encourage the next generation of techies and social justice warriors the opportunity to showcase their coding, research, and critical thinking skills by creating innovative applications that have the opportunity to make a positive impact on the lives of others and potentially change the world.

    We want YOU to be the change and build a working application that benefits the lives of other people. This is your chance to build an application that has the potential to add to the quality of life and improve human suffering.

    Think about what obstacles people endure and identify social injustices that people face in their everyday lives. Once your team identifies an area of social justice that your app will address, provide supporting evidence for it’s need by researching and citing 2 articles using an SCCLD database.

    This is your chance to help people alleviate the struggles of social injustice and pave a path towards a better future.

Rules & Regulations

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  1. All participants must be between 13 - 18 years of age.
  2. Each team must consist of 2 - 4 members (No exceptions). Any team with more than four (4) teens is not eligible to compete.
  3. All participants must be officially registered for this contest in order to participate.
  4. All participants must be officially registered for the SCCLD’s Teen Summer Reading Program in order to participate.
  5. All project must include: a working app and code, a demonstration video (2 – 3 minutes long), answers to supplemental questions, database research citations.
  6. Each team must research and cite 2 articles using Santa Clara County Library District online databases to identify an area of social justice and, using critical thinking skills, analyze information sources to provide statistics, proof of evidence, and authentic resources that strengthen your team’s mission in creating the app.
  7. All ideas and programs must be original. Any plagiarism will warrant immediate disqualification of the team in question.
  8. All research and programming must be done solely by participants with no aid from mentors or parents.
  9. Judges will have the final ruling on prize distribution and category winners.

Grading Rubric

Topic Description Points
Creativity & Innovation Is this application unique and innovation? Does the application stand out? Does it may you say "That's cool!"? 10
Technical Difficulty Is the application technically interesting? Is it difficult to develop? 10
Design/User Experience Is the project's user experience smooth? Is it well designed? 10
Real World Impact on Social Justice Does the team clearly identify a target audience? Does the team have a solid understanding of their target audience? Do they understand potential users’ needs and challenges? Is the problem well-defined? How well does this application impact the area of social justice? Is the application useful? 10
Video Does the video fully demonstrate the working application and explain how it works? Does the video address the area of social justice the app is geared to help? Was this video informative? Was the video creative? 5
Research Did the team demonstrate that they used an SCCLD database to provide supporting evidence in the need for creating the application? Did the team provide citations for their research using Santa Clara County Library District database sources? 5

Research

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Research and cite 2 articles/documents using a Santa Clara County Library District (SCCLD) database(s) to provide information on the area of Social Justice your app is addressing. You will include a “Source Citation Bibliography” for each database article/document you use to conduct research from. “Source Citations” are provided for you at the bottom of each database article. To cite, you will simply use the provided citations and include them at the end of your demonstration video in the credits.

An example of what a database article's “Source Citation” looks like is as follows:

Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)

"Activism." Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection, Gale, 2015. Opposing Viewpoints In Context, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/PC3010999248/OVIC?u=santacc_main&sid=OVIC&xid=69c53150. Accessed 1 May 2018.

****In order to access SCCLD databases, you will need to provide the following information when logging into an SCCLD database:

1. SCCLD library card barcode number (on the back of your library card)

2. 4 digit SCCLD library card PIN number (if you don’t remember the PIN number you need to come to the library to have it updated)

If you do not have an SCCLD library card, you can obtain one at any of the following libraries: Cupertino, Campbell, Milpitas, Morgan Hill, Los Altos, Saratoga, Gilroy, Bookmobile

Important Dates

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Registration Opens

The Online Registration opens on Friday, May 18th at 10pm. Make sure you register!

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Registration Closes

The Registration closes on Saturday, June 30th at 5pm. We will not be accepting any late sumbissions. Make sure to mark your calendars!

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Project Sumbissions Due

The project sumbissions will be due on Friday, July 13th at 11:59 pm.

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Judging Dates

The Judging dates will be take place from Saturday, July 14th to Friday, July 20th.

Winners Announced

The winners will be announced the week of July 23th - July 29th 2018.

Submission Requirements

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Topic:

Your team’s app must address one area of “Social Justice.” Potential topics may include (but are not limited to): hunger, poverty, inequality, gender rights, racial justice, immigration, bullying, etc. For a thorough list of potential topics, go to the “Opposing Viewpoints in Context” database, and click on the tab that says “Browse Issues”

Platform:

Your app can be on any platform you like. It can be on iOS, Android, a web app, a PC app, etc.

Functionality:

Your app must be fully functional.

Content Suitability:

Your app cannot be indecent, defamatory, in obvious bad taste, demonstrate a lack of respect for public morals or conduct. Your app cannot defame political parties or politicians.

Demonstration Video Requirements

Each team must create a demonstration video containing the following information:

1. All videos must be between 2 – 3 minutes.

2. Include the “SCCLD Library Logo” at the beginning of your demonstration video.

***A JPEG version of the logo will be sent out to your team after you complete the online contest registration.

3. The name of the app and your team’s name.

4. Clearly explain the purpose of the app and what area of social justice it addresses.

5. Explain the app’s target audience (who is the app intended for?)

6. Explain how the app helps people.

7. Demonstrate how the app is used.

8. Include at least 2 SCCLD database Source Citations at the end of your demonstration video in the credits.

Think of this video as a commercial that pitch’s your team’s application project. The video should be as clear and compelling as possible, and always try to include a “WOW! Factor” to make it stand out. THINK BIG!!!!

Once the video is complete, upload the video to YouTube. Set the video to “public” in order for the judges to view it and include the link in your final submission.

How to submit a project:

Once a team’s entire project (working application, code, demo video, supplemental questions) is ready, you may submit it. The last day to submit a project is Friday, July 13th at 11:59pm.

In order to be eligible for this contest, your team must submit a demonstration video (2 – 3 minutes) and a copy of all code used. We will be using Google Classroom for submissions.

See the following information to join our classroom for project submissions.

1. Go to classroom.google.com and log into your preferred google account

2. Click on the “+” icon at the top of the page

3. Enter this class code: rl3rnq1

4. You have now joined the class!

5. Click on an assignment to view its details, and attach files as necessary.

App Contest Winners

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1st Place - Team Hapi

$500

  • Developers:

    Deepak R & Jasmine L

  • Application Name:

    Hapi App
    • Hapi App Description
  • This project addresses the area of social justice centering on mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, and suicide prevention. Studies have shown that genes may play a role in influencing our sensitivity to trauma, but environment and experiences have a more significant effect on mental health. Presently, we lack applications to combat depression. Our personal experiences, as teenagers, have shown that health issues such as anxiety and depression are interrelated due to the stressful competition we face amongst our peers to achieve high scores and perfect grades in order to enter the college of our dreams. Knowing that social justice phenomenon stems from abuse of human rights in our community, the process of our project was a crucial addition towards our knowledge about our society. Upon investigating the field of mental health, we not only learned that one in every five teenagers suffers from mental illness, but also “families need an effective, theoretically based, psychological intervention” (Barry, 288). Thus, in an effort to reduce teen mental illness, we developed Hapi. Upon participation in this contest, we are motivated to discover problems our community is facing and provide a potential solution to battle the problems. To us, this contest was a creative way to merge the aspects of computer science with humanities, which are two fields that perhaps contradict each other the most. We learned through the usage of a library database that certain online information might not be reliable; however, with the presence of a database, we can be assured that our research results are accurate. In addition, a database allows quick access to correctly formatted citations.
Check out the Video

2nd Place - Team Teresa

$250

  • Developers:

    Mohana N & Omid A

  • Application Name:

    Teresa App
    • Teresa App Description
  • This app addresses the issue of Food Insecurity for the poor, and people in need, along with making a deep impact towards ending food waste by restaurants. The Teresa App will connect soup kitchens and food centers for people in need to big restaurants and put an end to food insecurity for the poor. In 2014, one in seven families were struggling to provide food to all their family members. At the same time, 1.3 billion tons of food is wasted every year. Throughout the development of this app, we learned that our library's databases offer thousands of articles, magazines, and primary/secondary sources. We also learned that it is important to use sources from databases because they are credible.
Check out the Video

3rd Place - Team LLT

$100

  • Developers:

    Rishabh M, Aryan K, Amish G, & Neel K

  • Application Name:

    Salutem App
    • Salutem App Description
  • The Salutem App addresses the developing worldwide refugee crisis. It allows citizens to temporarily provide sanctuary to refugees who have nowhere to go to. Refugee users can look for available houses and shelter that others can provide them. This app also has the functionality to tell the refugees and people in need were the closest free health care areas are if they are in need of medical aid. Throughout the course of researching and developing our project, we learned that in the case of the refugee crisis, worldwide leaders take months, even years, to come up with a viable solution. Many do not understand the extent of which this crisis has grown to; in this case 25.4 million refugees do not have a place to call “home.” Access to the Cupertino Library's databases made it easier for us to quality produce research and also eliminated the hassle of scouring the Internet for accurate information. Most importantly, is the quality of information the database provides. With the rise of fake news today, the library databases allowed us to access high quality information without having to worry about the accuracy of the content as the authors were generally university professors. Through this contest, we now see that libraries are a central source of information, but more importantly, an integral part of the community.
Check out the Video

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   Watch the Video

For more information about the Teen App Design Contest, feel free to watch this amazing video the Teen Advisory Board members and Matt Lorenzo put together.

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If you have any questions, contact us at: cupertinoappcontest@gmail.com

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