Local teen, and the app he made, earn Congressional recognition

A passion for computers got Joshua Markle into coding. Now, the 17-year-old James City County student has created an app that has earned him recognition by the U.S. House of Representatives.

The Congressional App Challenge was created to encourage students with an interest in the science, technology, engineering and math fields to showcase their talent while learning to code. Members of Congress host contests in their districts for middle school and high school students, encouraging them to pursue careers in computer science.

Markle, a Warhill High School junior who also attends the New Horizons Governor’s School for Science and Technology in Hampton, was the 2022 winner for the 1st Congressional District, which is represented by Rob Wittman. Markle’s app, which he designed and programmed, is to help student drivers track their driving hours on a smartphone.

The app, which Markle gave the name Milestone, was one of the 2,707 fully-functioning apps submitted to 335 members of Congress for the challenge.

“Joshua designed a fantastic app,” Wittman said after Markle was announced as the 1st District’s winner. “This is an incredibly useful and well-designed app, and I was very impressed with Joshua’s work.”

Markle, who is from Toano, gained inspiration for the app when he received his learner’s permit in 2021. Instead of writing down and tracking his driving times on a piece of paper, he decided to find a way to track his times on his cellphone. The app tracks the hours needed to receive a state driving license, allowing users to visualize their progress.

The app also displays the number of driving hours a new driver still needs to log and whether the driving was done during the day or night — a requirement to get a license in some states. Virginia requires new drivers to log 15 driving hours after sunset.

“It will visually show a progress bar of how many day hours you have and how far left you have to go to get all of your hours,” Markle said.

The app, which Markle used to help record his own driving hours, can be customized based on the state someone lives in and be adjusted for weather conditions. It also gives driving tips, such as “a stop sign means stop.”

This year’s challenge set the record for most student registrations, the most apps submitted and most districts receiving over 20 apps. It included students from across 50 states, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Mariana Islands, American Samoa and Washington, D.C.

Wittman said the ability to code, along with STEM skills, is becoming increasingly important as we move further into a digital world.

“It’s essential that we continue to advance our efforts in ensuring schools are equipped to offer STEM programs to students,” Wittman said in an email, “so that they can develop the skills they need to participate in a global economy and secure good-paying jobs after they graduate.”

Other winners from Hampton Roads include 2nd District winner Luke Baja-Ricketts, a senior at First Colonial High School in Virginia Beach, and 3rd District winner Jamie Ashby, an 8th grader at Booker T. Washington Middle School in Newport News.

Markle began learning how to code when he was in sixth grade, using basic web development tools such as HTML. At the time, he was just figuring out how to make a basic website, but that early experience steered him into programming. He’s since learned to make video games using a more advanced programming tool called Unity, and he engages in smaller video game programming competitions known as game jams.

“You’re given this theme to make a game around, and you have...a time limit where you can make this game,” Markle said. “So, for example, one of the recent ones I did was ‘Linked Together,’ which was the theme for a video game.”

Markle created Milestone using software developed by Google called Flutter and a programming language called Dart, which he said he had never used before.

Much of Markle’s inspiration to enter the app challenge came from one of his teachers, Islam Bedir, at New Horizons, a magnet school that offers advanced science and math education to students in the region. Markle said Bedir, who teaches a class called computational physics, encouraged all of his students to sign up for the challenge.

“I had heard that there were other apps, and I was just trying apps at that point. It’s just something I was interested in, and this idea was thrown out,” Markle said. He then thought, “What if I just made my own app for this? This could be so cool!”

Markle submitted his project with no expectations that it would actually be recognized, but now, after some polishing, he hopes to try and release the app on the Android store.

“It works really good on my device, but not on other people’s devices. That’s because the phones size differently, and so I just have to take that into account,” Markle said. “Once I do, I’ll end up releasing it very soon.”

Markle, as the 1st District challenge winner, now gets to attend a celebration in April called #HouseOfCode, where he and other winners will get to demonstrate their apps to members of Congress, Capitol Hill staff members and the tech community.

As for the future, Markle, who also plays soccer for Warhill and for soccer club F.C. Reign, sees himself studying computer science in college. His parents, Heather and Jeremy Markle, said they can’t help but be proud.

“As his mom, I can brag,” Heather Markle said. “The kid is a straight-A student who has been taking the most rigorous possible course load since forever.”

The 2023 Congressional App Challenge will launch in June. Eligible students can pre-register at www.congressionalappchallenge.us/students/student-registration.

Dominic Catacora, dominic.catacora@virginiamedia.com, 757-798-9833