U.s. congressman Rodney davis proudly representing the 13th district of illinois

Davis presents Chapman with certificate recognizing his winning application submission.

U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) today announced the 13th Congressional Web App Challenge winner, Bliss Chapman of Mahomet, IL with his submission of Wonderful Weather, which shows current weather conditions and observations based on location and includes graphical visualizations of weather data.

The Congressional App Challenge encourages high school students to learn how to code by creating their own applications. The 2015 competition had more than 1,700 students participate from 116 congressional districts across the U.S.

“Innovation and technology drive the success of our nation,” said Davis. “This competition not only highlights how critical STEM education is to our economy but it also encourages more students to engage in these fields. Congratulations to Bliss and all of this year’s winners for their impressive submissions.”


Click here to view Chapman’s submission of the Wonderful Weather app above.

Chapman is currently homeschooled but attends college classes part-time at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and Parkland College. His enrollment in a 13th district school made him eligible for the award. Chapman has been working for Agrible, an agricultural analytics startup based in Research Park, as a Mobile Application Developer and was just accepted as a Computer Science and Statistics major at UIUC for the fall.

Additional features of the Wonderful Weather app include:

• Current weather conditions and observations
• National radar
• Stunning satellite imagery
• Hourly and 8-day forecasts
• Graphical visualizations of weather data
• Global forecast animations of temperature, precipitation, surface winds, and relative humidity
• Your local weather conditions update hourly and forecasts are automatically generated as new weather information is gathered and processed.

The 2016 Web App Challenge will be open from July 18 through November 2. To participate, students should contact Tyler Cravens in Davis’ office at 217.403.4690 or by email at tyler.cravens@mail.house.gov. Additional information about the challenge can be found here.