Until just recently, the thought of building and developing a mobile app didn’t even cross Amanda Arellano’s mind. The high school senior also didn’t consider herself much of a “team player,” or a “leader.”
That all changed in the past few months.
Arellano is part of a five-person, all-girls team that just won a national app development contest for Safe&Sound, an app the high school students created that helps teens deal with stress, anxiety, and depression.
“I didn’t think it was in my range of things to do, but I am definitely interested in making another app,” Arellano said. “This was actually a very fun process.”
Arellano is a student at Tri-Tech Skills Center, a 36-year-old technical and professional training hub in eastern Washington. Tri-Tech Skills Center attracts students from seven school districts who split time between normal high school classes and the center, where they develop career and employability skills beyond what’s taught in their regular course load.
The Tri-Tech Skills Center was one of eight high schools honored with a “Best in Nation” award in the third annual Innovative App Challenge, which was sponsored by Verizon and accepted 1,100 entries this year. The three-year-old challenge is designed to encourage student interest in science, math, engineering, and technology (STEM).
Arellano’s team, which included girls from five different high schools, decided to develop an app that would help people deal with anxiety and depression. They were motivated by what happened at Washington’s Marysville Pilchuck High School last October, when a 15-year-old student shot five students before killing himself.
“We decided that we needed to really help the youth mental health problem,” Arellano said. “Every teen has a phone now, and we thought an anonymous app would help them be more forthcoming about whatever they were feeling. They wouldn’t feel embarrassed or ashamed.”
The “Safe&Sound” app offers daily stress management techniques, resources for those dealing with anxiety or depression, push notifications that include positive quotes, and a journal with a voice-to-speech feature that allows users to speak their thoughts and have them appear on the app.
Here’s a video that the team submitted for the contest which explains how the app works:
For winning the challenge, the Tri-Cities Skills Center team won $20,000 in grants for its program and the five students received a Samsung Galaxy Note tablet. But perhaps more importantly, they gained valuable life and career skills.
“We definitely learned about working in a team,” Arellano said. “For me, I wasn’t much of a team player person. I learned how to work together well with others, making sure everyone’s ideas and opinions were heard. I also found leadership qualities in myself that I didn’t know I had.”
The team members, who had previously won regional and state contests, are all enrolled in a new program at the Tri-Cities Skills Center focused on health informatics and the rapidly-evolving technology side of healthcare. First-year instructor Kristel Kinder noted how the class and app contests help expose students to STEM-related subjects — particularly girls, who often lose interest in STEM fields as they get older.
“Sometimes when they shy away from those subjects, it’s just about not knowing what they entail,” Kinder said. “As soon as you sit down with someone and have them do one hands-on activity, it will peak their interest and they can get excited.”
In June, the team will travel to Dallas and present their app at the 2015 National Technology Student Association Conference. Before then, Verizon, in collaboration with the MIT Media Lab, will help the students bring their app concept to life. This is the second straight year with Washington represented at the conference — last year, Bellevue’s Open Window School was honored for its HikeAbout app concept.
