Taiwan Regional Appathon Winners Headed to MIT Summit
The winning teams, addressing senior assistance and food waste reduction, will present at the MIT AI & Education Summit in July 2024.
Participants, judges, and organizers pose at the final round event of the App Inventor Regional Appathon in Taiwan.
Two Taiwanese junior high school teams—Bobi and No Waste—were named winners of the inaugural App Inventor Regional Appathon competition in Taiwan and will present their projects at the MIT AI & Education Summit in July 2024. The winning apps, developed using MIT App Inventor, address community needs for senior assistance and food waste reduction, respectively.
The Taiwan Regional Appathon program began last summer, when five training workshops were held throughout region from July through October. Over 60 students attended these workshops under the guidance of lecturers with expertise in computer science education. Students developed and submitted mobile app projects for the initial round of the competition, from which four teams were selected for the finals.
The final round took place on January 20-21, 2024, at the Mellow Fields Hotel during a two-day appathon event. Each of the teams had the opportunity to consult on-site advisors to discuss ways to enhance their app projects. After making improvements to their apps, the teams presented their projects to a panel of judges consisting of the following: Dr. Natalie Lao, Executive Director of the App Inventor Foundation; Liang-Yu Chien, a Taiwanese computer science teacher and author; and Shu-Chen Cheng, a university dean who conducts online bilingual App Inventor courses. The judges awarded first place to Bobi, second place and the Junior High School Special Award to No Waste, and joint third place to EarSleuth and iReady.
Learn more about the winners and finalists below.
First Place: Bobi
Team Members: Kai-Jung Chou, Chung-Yi Lin, Cheng-Tse Lin
Teacher: Ruei-Fu Hong
School: Taipei Municipal LongShan Junior High School
Bobi is an app that aims to improve the lives of seniors who seek a better standard of living. It offers six features to simplify senior living and promote social interaction while tending to health needs: an easy to use messaging platform, a simplified social media network, map guidance to communal dining and senior learning centers, nutritious recipes suitable for chronic illnesses, health care support, and emergency calling. The app is designed with the elderly population in mind, featuring a large typing interface and text-to-speech functionality.
Second Place & Junior High Special Award: No Waste
Team Members: Keng-Jui Lin, Yu-Hao Lin, Shih-Chen Yang, Shih-Ting Yang
Teacher: Chih-Chao Yang
School: Luodong Junior High School
No Waste addresses two problems in one app: food waste and carbon emissions. It does so by creating a marketplace for farmers to sell excess, non-compliant produce to local consumers. Not only is this produce cheaper for consumers to purchase, but it also comes from a local source which reduces carbon emissions and supports the UN SDG objective of eliminating hunger.
Third Place: EarSleuth Private Notepad
Team Members: Anita Huang, Jessie Ke
Teacher: Yu-Pin Lu
School: Taipei Fuhsing Private School
EarSleuth Private Notepad introduces a novel biometric system: ear contour identification. Unlike face detection, ear detection does not require individuals to remove their masks. The ear detection system was developed using Teachable Machine to train a machine learning model on a variety of ear geometries. With the EarSleuth app, users can maintain a private diary, chat, and to-do list which only they can unlock with their unique ear contours.
Third Place: iReady
Team Members: Max Kuo, Josh Huang, Anna Chen, Peggy Tsai
Teacher: I-Ping Lin
School: Chingshin Academy
iReady is an all-in-one app that elevates young people’s everyday lives. There are six features that address different aspects of student life: an alarm clock that promotes timeliness and time management skills; a weather and traffic report to help students develop decision making skills for independent travel; a to-do list that connects to Notion; an AI-powered chatbot that guides students through their studies; and an IoT-connected iMonitor that allows users to monitor remote environments.