EVERETT, WA – Today, Rep. Rick Larsen (WA-02) announced William Humarang, a student at Mariner High School in Everett, as the Second District winner of the 2019 Congressional App Challenge.

Humarang was inspired to create his app, “Hacker Game: A Puzzle Game of 3 Stages,” after revisiting previous efforts to design and develop apps. Humarang’s winning entry features three interactive mini-games – a passcode game, a clicker game and a guessing game – that challenge the user to unlock a series of puzzles.

Humarang encouraged students to explore how rewarding coding can be: “Coding can seem daunting at first, but it makes you look at not only computers, but the whole world in another way.”

“The Congressional App Challenge has again shown the creativity of students from across Northwest Washington. I congratulate all of the students who competed and our winner, William Humarang, who developed a fun, interactive “hacker” game to engage students of all ages in coding,” said Larsen.

As the Second District winner, Humarang will receive $250 in Amazon Web Services credits, and his app will be eligible to be on display in the U.S. Capitol building and on the House of Representatives website.

In 2018, Burlington-Edison High School student Will Garrison won with an app designed to help users practice and learn math skills in a fun and engaging way.

Washington state continues to be a leader in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics with more than 313,000 high school students and 165,000 two-year college students enrolled in Career and Technical Education programs.

The Congressional App Challenge is an annual competition that aims to help maintain U.S. competitiveness by inspiring youth to pursue crucial STEM skills.

For more information about the Congressional App Challenge, visit https://www.congressionalappchallenge.us/.

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