A smart phone app developed by two College of Charleston computer science students has won first place in the Charleston Defense Contractors Association Mobile App Competition.
A screen shot from Pickup, a new app designed by students Tyler Newman and Ben Muldrow.
Students Tyler Newman and Ben Muldrow won “Best of Summit” as well as first place in the college category for their app called Pickup, a social app that allows users to create and join local pickup games for different sports. The developers hope to release the app on Apple’s App Store within the next month and the Android version within the next two months.
“I came up with the idea for Pickup in my sophomore year when I wanted to play ultimate Frisbee but couldn’t find enough people to participate,” says Muldrow. “I figured it would be convenient if there was a simple platform to create pickup games. I pitched the idea to my friend Tyler and he thought it was exciting. However, we didn’t start working on building the app until we heard about the CDCA Mobile App Competition.”
The results of the annual competition, which promotes science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education and careers to young people, were announced at the association’s defense summit on Dec. 6, 2017. The total prize pool for all winners is $10,000, but Newman and Muldrow don’t yet know how much of that amount they’ll receive.
Programs entered in the competition were evaluated on the scope of the problem addressed by the application, ease-of-use and positive user experience. The competition was open to students in middle school, high school and undergraduate or postgraduate institutions.
“We feel that the CDCA Mobile App Competition encourages students interested in computer science to pursue their own ideas outside of a traditional curriculum,” says Newman. “It was an honor to participate in this event and we encourage others who might be interested to enter in years to come.”
