Three Newtown Public Schools students reflected on recently being recognized for their work in the Lieutenant Governor's Computing Challenge (LGCC).

Head O'Meadow Elementary School student Hayden Henderson and Newtown High School (NHS) students Alina Bolf and Andrew Smiley each submitted a project for this year's LGCC, a statewide coding competition for Connecticut students in grades three through twelve. It is one of Connecticut's premier computer science competitions, encouraging students to apply creativity, problem-solving, and technical skills to develop innovative computing solutions, according to NHS teacher Kristin Violette.

This year, she said more than 900 student submissions were entered statewide across the Concept, Prototype, and Development Challenge categories. Among this highly competitive field, three Newtown students were among the few recognized in the App Development Challenge category. Bolf and Smiley also attended a recognition event for the challenge on May 29 at Quinnipiac University.

This was special for Violette, as Bolf and Smiley are both members of the high school's National Computer Science Honor Society, which she advises.

Bolf, Henderson, and Smiley each designed their own app for the competition.

Bolf was recognized for developing TraitTriage, an autosomal recessive genetic disease calculator that allows users to input parental genetic information and determine the probability that offspring will inherit a specific genetic condition. She independently designed and coded the application in Java.

The app also marks Bolf's second consecutive year being selected and recognized at the LGCC.

The idea for TraitTriage did not come out of nowhere. Bolf said she took biology in school last year and really enjoyed the class, specifically the unit on genetics. When she went to the LGCC's awards ceremony last year, Bolf heard about the independent nonprofit biomedical research institution The Jackson Laboratory, and was very intrigued about their work.

"So I looked into what they do, and seeing they do a lot with genetic diseases, I decided to make a program that was similar to what they do," Bolf explained.

Bolf had taken an AP Computer Science class this past year, which helped when it came to programming the app. She worked on TraitTriage over a few days and had her family and friends test it for her.

"It's kind of hard to say [how long it took to develop] because there were so many different pieces that I had to submit, like the plan and the trailer, but the coding alone maybe took me ... maybe around five to six hours in total? But I did it over a couple of days," Bolf said.

She noted that there were several challenges when it came to app development. With TraitTriage, Bolf said it took her a while to get all of the calculations right. She added that if someone's logic does not work out, then they have to trace back their steps and write out what each piece of code is doing to figure out how to solve the problem.

Smiley was recognized for developing LunchByte, an easy-to-use mobile app that helps NHS students keep track of their lunch wave schedule and share that information with friends.

While the project began as part of a classroom assignment, Violette said Smiley expanded it beyond the original requirements by incorporating multiple programming languages and technologies into the final application.

NHS has two cafeterias located in two opposite ends of the school: the cafetorium located in F-Wing, and the cafeteria in lower A-Wing. Smiley said that, with two cafeterias and several different lunch waves, students keeping track of who has what lunch wave and where they are going is a common source of confusion at the beginning of each school year.

"I always thought it was a struggle to remember where I was going, so I figured it would help if there was a way to keep track of it easily. I would spend a lot of time trying to text my friends since there were three lunch waves," Smiley explained.

Smiley said he worked on LunchByte over two weeks; he even remembers working on it at the airport once because he had "nothing else to do" at the time. He used web technologies, HTML, JavaScript, and CSS to code the app. While Smiley took a class in school on the programming language Python, he wanted to use the right tool for LunchByte.

"I wanted whatever I used to fit well with an app," Smiley explained. "It's not that Python can't work for that, but I wanted something that would be easy for anyone to open up on their computer."

The hardest part of the development process was thinking of a name and logo. Smiley went through several different names.

"The programming comes naturally to me after I learn it," Smiley said.

While Smiley created LunchByte and its code for NHS, he said it could easily be adapted to any school.

Henderson was recognized for creating Breathe Buddy, a guided meditation app that lets people follow along with guided animations on different types of breathing. It also gives people a chance write in a daily journal, track how they are feeling, and see which breathing techniques work best for them.

Different breathing techniques include belly breathing, where people breathe deep through their stomach like a sleeping bear, and star breathing, where people breathe in to draw the lines of a star. People can rate the breathing techniques they used out of five stars.

The starting question Henderson had, which led him to develop the app with his dad, was whether breathing and relaxation techniques can help with physical and mental stress.

"I felt that, in a big situation where your emotions take over, you can use breathing techniques to help you calm down and steady the situation," Henderson said.

He said it took him three weeks to develop Breathe Buddy, and that he had a lot of fun working on it.

All three Newtown Public Schools students expressed interest in doing the competition again if they have a chance.

Bolf thanked Violette for her guidance throughout the whole process and introducing her to the challenge. She encouraged anyone who wants to develop an app to never give up.

"Even though it can sometimes seem like nothing's working and you might just want to give up, it's always worth it to keep going and never quit, because hard work will be paid off," Bolf said.

Smiley said that programming is a lot easier now more than ever with AI, which he called a good thing, but also "a little bit scary."

He added, "But don't be nervous about it, because when I was first trying to learn computer science, I was very nervous about it. A lot of it was trial and error, but you can do it."

Reporter Jenna Visca can be reached at jenna@thebee.com.