Nearly 200 Students Showcase App Prototypes At Apple; One Summer Chicago

Twin brothers Jasper and Jacobi Mitchell grew up listening to music and learning to play instruments. The Kenwood High School sophomores students said it was second nature for them to develop an app that teaches others how to read music and play an instrument.

The Mitchell brothers joined nearly 200 other students on Wednesday to showcase their app prototypes at Apple Michigan Ave., 401 N. Michigan Ave. One Summer Chicago, with the support of CPS and Apple’s Everyone Can Code initiative, offered coding programs and summer internships with businesses across the city over the past six weeks.

The 15-year-olds sing, and play the piano, guitar and drums. They stressed that learning music is important and they want others to learn it without having to pay for expensive music classes.

“It’s been a great summer, an amazing experience said Jasper. “It was a lot of coding at first, but this increased our knowledge in other fields.”

His brother agreed.

“It was a great experience,” said Jacobi. “We got to learn music in an extraordinary way. Learning music is extremely important to us,” he said. “Quick Music is everything you need to learn music and shows you how to use sheet music, piano, guitar, trumpet, etc. You can choose how you want to learn and it gives you a variety.”

Another group created an app prototype that would allow a person to not only make reservations at their favorite restaurant, but also select where they want to be seated.

During the summer the students met at one of 10 location sites, working closely with instructors to become trained in Swift, Apple’s programming language that creates apps.

The culminating event was an opportunity for the students to showcase their app prototypes through a slideshow to judges.

Some groups focused on preventing teen suicide prevention, while others looked at sustainability or teen pregnancy prevention.

Computer Science Manager, Troy Williams, who oversees CS4All said they offered a summer coding program last year, but this was the first year they partnered with Apple,

Many of the students had no previous coding experience, he said.

As a district, we have made it a priority to expose all students to a quality computer science education.

“Beginning with the class of 2020, there’s a high school graduation requirement for computer science,” Williams said. “One full year, one credit of computer science, so that’s an entry level course that’s available for students who don’t have any experience.”

Although the coding programs will continue to change, Williams said that the summer program has given them the foundation and opened the door to another career option.

“We are very focused on preparing students for jobs of tomorrow,” he said.