Barrington High coding students show off their apps

Sixty-eight Barrington High School students showed off functioning iPhone and iPad apps they created at an event called "Meet the Makers" Monday night.

In all, 30 different apps were on display that ran the gamut from games to calorie trackers, from weather alert apps to personal digital wardrobes.

Tom Bredemeier, a computer science teacher, said the students have been working hard on the mobile app projects since spring break, longer than students were given last year, and it shows in the final product.

"Many of the concepts they are employing here are well beyond things that were taught in the class," Bredemeier said. "Many of the things they learned on their own."

Students Ryan Ziolkowski, TJ Murray and Garrett Haufschild learned a coding language outside of what they learned in class to create their app, a game called Merciless Mercenary in which the player fights through a randomly generated dungeon.

Ryan said they started from a basic game and made it their own through adding features and art. "It was really nice to build up from something very basic," Ryan said.

Sam Golding, part of a group that coded a gravity maze game called Pizza Drop, said she didn't have any coding experience coming into the class but now hopes to do more with it in college. She said everyone in the class worked together in an informal environment.

"You come in, there's always music on, a different genre every day, which is nice," Sam said. "You can always ask the people around you, 'Hey, how do you do this?' Everyone's pretty chill."

This is the second year Barrington High has offered the course, which was created by Chicago-based company Mobile Makers Academy. The firm worked with 12 high schools and 15 teachers this year.

Stacy Sniegowski, the director of curriculum and Instruction for Mobile Makers, said instead of just handing teachers a curriculum at the beginning of the year, they worked with teachers and adapted to what their students needed.

"We're giving teachers a tool kit to teach mobile app development," Sniegowski said. "We respect their decision on how to teach their students."

This year, students in each of 12 high schools using the Mobile Makers curriculum will submit their apps into a competition. Sniegowski said the company will curate the best of the best, which will give students something to strive for.

Company CEO Jessi Chartier said Mobile Makers has 24 contracts with high schools signed for next year and 120 others in the pipeline.

"Lots of schools use this as a way to get kids into computer science," Chartier said. "It's a way to get people excited about what coding is, and there's no better way to do that than with the devices they are using every day."