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Posts tagged with "Swift Student Challenge"

Apple Spotlights Four of the Distinguished Swift Student Challenge Winners

Image: Apple.

Image: Apple.

Earlier this year, Apple selected 350 students from around the world as winners of its annual Swift Student Challenge. From that talented pool, Apple picks 50 Distinguished Winners whose projects stand out from the others. Today, Apple highlighted the work of four of them: Taiki Hamamoto, Marina Lee, Luciana Ortiz Nolasco, and Nahom Worku.

Taiki Hamamoto. Image: Apple.

Taiki Hamamoto. Image: Apple.

Taiki Hamamoto built an app playground to teach people about the Hanafuda, a Japanese card game that he discovered many of his friends didn’t know. According to Apple’s press release:

While Hamamoto stayed true to the game’s classic floral iconography, he also added a modern touch to the gameplay experience, incorporating video game concepts like hit points (HP) that resonate with younger generations. SwiftUI’s DragGesture helped him implement dynamic, highly responsive effects like cards tilting and glowing during movement, making the gameplay feel natural and engaging. He’s also experimenting with making Hanafuda Tactics playable on Apple Vision Pro.

Marina Lee. Image: Apple.

Marina Lee. Image: Apple.

Marina Lee, is a computer science student at the University of Southern California. A call from her grandmother who was alerted to evacuate her home because of wildfires in the L.A. area inspired Lee to create EvacuMate to help users prepare an emergency checklist in case of evacuations like her grandmother’s. In addition:

Lee integrated the iPhone camera roll into the app so users can upload copies of important documents, and added the ability to import emergency contacts through their iPhone contacts list. She also included resources on topics like checking air quality levels and assembling a first-aid kit.

Luciana Ortiz Nolasco. Image: Apple.

Luciana Ortiz Nolasco. Image: Apple.

Luciana Ortiz Nolasco built BreakDownCosmic:

a virtual gathering place where users can add upcoming astronomical events around the world to their calendars, earn medals for accomplishing “missions,” and chat with fellow astronomers about what they see.

Ortiz Nolasco who is 15 and from Nuevo León, Mexico will attend WWDC with the other Distinguished Student Winners and plans to continue work on BreakDownCosmic when she returns home with the goal of releasing it on the App Store.

Nahom Worku. Image: Apple.

Nahom Worku. Image: Apple.

Nahom Worku grew up in Ethiopia and Canada and learned to code during the pandemic. Worku’s submission for the Swift Student Challenge app playground, AccessEd, is designed to offer educational resources in places where Internet connectivity doesn’t exist or is spotty.

Built using Apple’s machine learning and AI tools, such as Core ML and the Natural Language framework, the app recommends courses based on a student’s background, creating a truly personalized experience.

Congratulations to all of this year’s Swift Student Challenge winners. I’m always impressed with the projects we’ve learned about through Apple’s press releases and past interviews we’ve done on AppStories. It’s always a pleasure to watch a new generation of kids learn to code and become the developers whose apps I know we’ll cover in coming years on MacStories.

Apple Announces Swift Student Challenge Timeline for 2025→

Apple has announced that the 2025 Swift Student Challenge will be held for three weeks in February 2025. According to Apple’s press release:

Students, educators, and their advocates can find out how to prepare for the challenge and sign up to be notified when applications open at developer.apple.com. Apple will recognize a total of 350 Swift Student Challenge winners whose submissions demonstrate excellence in innovation, creativity, social impact, or inclusivity. From this esteemed group, 50 Distinguished Winners will receive additional recognition and be invited to Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino next summer.

The company has also updated its Swift Coding Club, a website with resources for students preparing for the annual Challenge, and added new Develop in Swift Tutorials.

I’m sure we’ll hear more about the Swift Student Challenge in February when it kicks off and then again closer to WWDC as we did this year. I’m glad Apple has extended the timeline for publicizing the Swift Student Challenge, which I’m sure will give students and educators more time to prepare for the event and submit their best work.

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WWDC 2024: The AppStories Interviews with ADA and Swift Student Challenge Distinguished Winners→

Devin Davies, the developer of Crouton.

Devin Davies, the developer of Crouton.

To wrap up our week of WWDC coverage, we just published a special episode of AppStories that was recorded in the Apple Podcasts Studio at Apple Park. Federico and I interviewed three of this year’s Apple Design Award winners:

Devin Davies.

Devin Davies.

  • Devin Davies, the creator of Crouton, which won an ADA in the Interaction category
Katarina Lotrič and Jasna Krmelj of Gentler Streak.

Katarina Lotrič and Jasna Krmelj of Gentler Streak.


- Katarina Lotrič, CEO and co-founder, and Jasna Krmelj, CTO and co-founder, of Gentler Streak, which won an ADA in the Social Impact category

James Cuda, CEO, and Michael Shaw, CTO, of Procreate.

James Cuda, CEO, and Michael Shaw, CTO, of Procreate.


- James Cuda, CEO, and Michael Shaw, CTO of Procreate, which won an ADA for (Procreate Dreams) in the Innovation category

We also interviewed two of the Swift Student Challenge Distinguished Winners:

  • Dezmond Blair, a student at the Apple Developer Academy in Detroit. His app marries his passion for biking and the outdoors with technology, which creates an immersive experience.
  • Adelaide Humez, a high school student from Lille, France. Her winning app, Egretta, allows users to create a journal of their dreams based on emotions.

In addition to being available as always in your favorite podcast app as an audio-only podcast, This special episode of AppStories is available on our new MacStories YouTube channel, which is also the home of Comfort Zone, one of the two podcasts we launched last week and other video projects.

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Apple Introduces Three of the Distinguished Swift Student Challenge Winners

Earlier this week, Federico and I interviewed two of the Swift Student Challenge winners on AppStories, which was a lot of fun. A new feature of the 2024 competition was the addition of Distinguished Winners. As Apple explains it in a press release published today:

Out of 350 winning submissions, 50 students have been named Distinguished Winners for building app playgrounds that stand out for their innovation, creativity, social impact, or inclusivity. These 50 students have been invited to a three-day in-person experience at Apple Park that includes tailored programming and the special event at this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), where they’ll join like-minded creators from all over the world.

Apple’s press release includes profiles of three of the Distinguished Winners: Elena Galluzzo, a college student from Canada, Dezmond Blair, from Canton, Michigan, and Jawaher Shaman, who is studying at the Apple Developer Academy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Elena Galluzzo’s winning app is an assistant for seniors:

Galluzzo designed Care Capsule to be an all-in-one assistant for elderly people. She used Apple’s machine learning framework Create ML to build a chatbot that analyzes interactions with the user to deduce whether they are experiencing loneliness or depression. The app also lets users track their medications, connect with community resources, and keep a record of positive memories.

Dezmond Blair, who attended the Apple Developer Academy in Detroit, built MTB XTREME, an app that

…puts users behind the handlebars of a mountain bike, offering a 360-degree view of the trails around them.”

Finally, Jawaher Shaman created an app called My Child to help people with speech conditions:

My Child tells Shaman’s story through the eyes of a child who stutters, and features characters inspired by her father and grandfather. The app guides users through exercises that help slow down their breathing and prepare them for real-life experiences like reading a story in class. Shaman used AVFAudio to add sounds that mimic the way her father would break sentences into small, more manageable parts.

Every year, I’m impressed with the projects students come up with for the Swift Student Challenge, and this year is no exception. Harshitha Rajesh and Roscoe Rubin-Rottenberg, whom Federico and I spoke to Monday, as well as the Distinguished Swift Student Challenge winners whose projects Apple featured today, are great examples of the sort of impactful projects that students from 35 countries and regions have created for the Challenge. It’s great to hear that 50 of the students will be at WWDC this year. Hopefully, Federico and I will have the chance to meet a few of them.