Four Rockwall-Heath students earned first place for Texas Region 4 in the Congressional App Challenge. Jonathan Payne (senior), Kyle Jackson (junior), Mikey Bess (junior) and Thomas Starnes (senior) were recognized by Congressman John Ratcliffe for their app: Iron Clad Cooking.
The Congressional App Challenge (CAC) is a public effort to encourage kids to learn how to code, through annual district-wide competitions hosted by Members of Congress for their district.
The students are creating a custom video game for the TSA competition in April and decided to create an application form of their game for the Congressional App Challenge.
While the team collectively came up with the concept of the game, the students each play an important role in creating it. Mikey Bess inputs the coding, Jonathan Payne created each individual character and object and animated them frame by frame, Kyle Jackson hand drew the backgrounds and Thomas Starnes created the music by playing his saxophone and editing the tune. They used Unreal Engine to create their app.
The students now have the chance to be selected for recognition by their member of Congress, win prizes and have their work displayed in the Capitol Building in Washington, DC.
Pictured (Left to Right): Jonathan Payne, Kyle Jackson, Congressman John Ratcliffe, Mikey Bess and Thomas Starnes
