January 18, 2024

Rep. Jill Tokuda Announces Winner of the Congressional App Challenge for Second Congressional District

(Honolulu, Hawaiʻi) – Representative Jill Tokuda (HI-02) is proud to announce the winner of the 2023 Congressional App Challenge for Hawaiʻi’s Second District.

“I am pleased to congratulate Mazzy McCloud as our winner of the 2023 Congressional App Challenge for Hawaii’s Second Congressional District and extend my sincerest gratitude to all students who have participated,” stated Rep. Jill Tokuda. “This year’s Congressional App Challenge showcased talented youth with a passion for creativity in coding and technology, and their great potential for future careers in STEM-related fields.”

Mazzy McCloud, an 11th grader from Island Pacific Academy, earned first place for her app, “Capitals Quiz,” which she designed to test users’ knowledge on capital cities around the world.  She was inspired to create this app because of her own passion for geography and coding.

“Capitals Quiz is an interactive educational app designed by me to test users’ knowledge about the capital cities of all the countries in the world,” said Mazzy McCloud. “When launched, the app presents the user with the name of a capital city and prompts them to correctly identify its matching country in a drop-down menu. The user then is immediately shown if their answer was correct or incorrect, helping them learn and refine their knowledge. After ten incorrect answers, the game concludes. It's a fun challenging game to test your worldly knowledge.”

Danielle Okimoto and Bostyn Tsukamoto, also enrolled in Island Pacific Academy, earned second place for their app, “Manor Escape Room.”  This app is designed for users to exercise critical thinking and deductive skills across multiple rooms filled with numerous challenges.

“The app will be a way for people to use critical thinking and deductive skills across multiple different rooms filled with numerous challenges,” said Danielle Okimoto and Bostyn Tsukamoto.  “Our target audience are any kids or even adults that just want to play a fun game when they’re bored. They could spend an hour on it or five minutes. It will be an exciting and mind-jogging game that relays on the player to pay close attention to previous clues around the rooms. The difficulty level will be moderate to accommodate for the various age ranges that may play the game.”

The Congressional App Challenge is an annual nationwide competition that allows students interested in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) to create an application or “app” for mobile, table, or computer devices.

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