CARMEL, Ind. — Laugh all you want, we’ve all been there.
Who among us hasn’t been locked into an hours-long car ride, only to unwittingly choose the rest stop with just one working bathroom? Or spent precious minutes wandering around an unfamiliar city, unsure where to find a public toilet?
A new phone app, developed by Carmel High School student Jasper Zhu, is providing solutions to that problem and winning awards. Rep. Victoria Spartz announced on Monday that Zhu’s "I Pooped There" app has taken home the top prize in the Congressional App Challenge 2023.
The app allows users to put reviews on bathrooms near them, or say which ones are best so that information is easily available to other people.
“If you need to go to the bathroom on a road trip or something, it’s like, 'Which exit do we wanna take?' And you can go to that bathroom instead of maybe going somewhere where the urinals are out of order or something like that,” Zhu said.
The sophomore said he felt some hesitation when he was first called down to the office on Monday to accept his award.
“I was just in the middle of my class and I see my brother and a teacher come into my classroom like, what are they doing here? Then, they bring me into the office and I’m like, 'Am I in trouble?'” Zhu said.
Far from it. Spartz showed up at Carmel High School to present the winning certificate to Zhu in person.
“I’m like, 'There’s no way. I cannot believe it,'” Zhu said. “I was really excited.”
The process started when Zhu was contacted by teammate and family friend Jackie Wei, of California, and the pair used JavaScript to create the mobile app. While Wie had the barebones of the app down already, Zhu was able to fill in some details.
“He created the idea, and when he reached out to me, I thought the idea was good, so I thought I could really start working on it,” Zhu said.
The process took around four months, and Zhu said he approached it the way he did any project.
“It doesn’t have to look professional. It just has to be like: this is gonna go here, this is gonna go here. This is what we want it to look like. Later on, because you know where everything is, you can add those details later,” Zhu said.
Zhu already had a passion for computer and data science, and believes creating the app was a necessary step to his development as a coder.
“I already wanted to do something with computers in college. Like, computer science or maybe data science. So, I think this was just like a step in improving my skills rather than sparking something in me or figuring out what I wanted to do,” Zhu said.
The Congressional App Challenge is one of the most prestigious challenges for coders in the country, and Zhu took home the top prize in a record-breaking year that saw more applicants than ever competing for the honor.
Some 374 House of Representatives members hosted competitions, and 11,334 students participated, which is 1,000 more compared to the original record set in 2019, according to organizers of the competition.
The challenge also received 3,645 original applications, an increase of almost 1,000 compared to the previous record set in 2022, according to representatives with The Congressional App. More than 25% of the submitted apps incorporated artificial intelligence, and this year's App Challenge featured the largest number of applications in a single district and the largest average number of applications per district in program history.
Winners from each participating district will receive exclusive invitations to a reception in Washington, D.C., which is scheduled for April 10-11, 2024.
Zhu will not be the only teen from Indiana honored at the reception. Teens from Indiana congressional districts, 1, 3, 6, 7, 8 and 9 have also submitted their apps for consideration, but representatives with the Congressional App said those will not be announced until January.
“Try not to be too worried because there are still other chances,” Zhu said.
“I Pooped There” will be showcased on www.House.gov and will be part of a rotating display in the Cannon House Office Building leading to the U.S. Capitol.