AdMob Student App Challenge – Winning Teams Announced
July 31st, 2014 | Published in Google Student Blog
We’re excited to announce the winners of the AdMob Student App Challenge, a mobile app development contest open exclusively to students. Students from all over the world were challenged to build a great app and monetize it it using the AdMob platform, with a chance to win awesome prizes.
We had hundreds of app submissions from more than 90 countries and hosted more than 50 events worldwide. Our 5 winning apps have made a huge splash in the Google Play Store, and have already amassed over 300,000 downloads and nearly 6,000 reviews combined.
After extensive review, the judging panel selected 4 Regional Winners and 1 overall Global Winner. Artavazd Mehrabyab, a judge for the challenge and Co-founder/COO of PicsArt, says he was honored to be a part of the challenge, which he considered “a great demonstration of the large global potential for app development among [a] younger generation.”
Regional Winners receive brand new Nexus tablets, and our Global Winner will receive a free trip to San Francisco and visit Google in Mountain View!
Drumroll please…
GLOBAL WINNER - Stacks Flashcards
Team Name: Centum
About the team. It is Phani Gaddipati, a student from Colorado Springs, Colorado, who takes home the first-place prize. Having grown up in Colorado, Phani currently studies Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.
About the app. Stacks Flashcards is an electronic flashcards app that allows users to memorize material by creating decks of cards, testing their knowledge, and viewing stats on their performance. After his first Organic Chemistry class in college, Phani quickly realized that passing the class would require a lot of memorization. As he searched for an app that would allow him to create flashcards electronically, Phani found a distinct lack of quality apps of this kind, and wanted to build something great on Android. He decided to create one of his own, working hard to make sure that it was easy to navigate with a clean and intuitive user interface. Phani considers user feedback to be crucial to the success of his app, and is constantly working to improve the app’s functionality. Congratulations Phani for being an all-star developer, and creating an app that solves a simple problem in a meaningful way!
REGIONAL WINNERS:
REGIONAL WINNER 1: India 2014 Elections
Region: Asia Pacific
Team Name: DV DROID
About the team. DV Droid is made up of 5 teammates, Darshan H, Venkatesh K B, Shivaprasad K S, Chiranthan K and Santhosh R, from Tumkur, India. The group met as high school students then separated for college, but each decided to pursue degrees in Engineering at their respective universities.
About the app. India 2014 Elections is an informative app that gives a complete historical overview of the Indian Elections results from as far back as 1947, as well as information regarding the most recent 2014 elections cycle. When the team got wind of the AdMob Student challenge, the General Elections in India were fast approaching. They decided to capitalize on the opportunity to create an app that raised awareness among Indian citizens as to the importance of elections and the value of each and every vote. They set out to provide the public with an app that provided useful information in a beautiful way, and judging by its positive reception and success in the app store, they more than succeeded in their mission!
REGIONAL WINNER 2: Headphone Connect
Region: North America
Team Name: Skytrait Mobile
About the team. Skytrait Mobile is the brain-child of Gabriel Brandão, the team’s one and only member. Of Portuguese descent, Gabriel was born in Taiwan and is currently a junior at Towson University just outside of Baltimore, Maryland. In addition to his work, Gabriel would like to acknowledge his friend and classmate Juli Phillips, whom he regularly relied upon for user feedback and testing.
About the app. User simplicity was the foundation upon which Headphone Connect was developed. An “on action” based app, Headphone Connect allows users to assign certain apps to launch automatically as soon as their headphones are plugged in. Gabriel had seen apps that claimed to accomplish this purpose, but most were confusing and hard to set up. Sensing a gap in the market, Gabriel worked hard to create an app with a clean interface, simple setup and useful function. So far, the app has received nearly 2,000 5-star reviews on the Play Store and has been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times.
REGIONAL WINNER 3: Match Cube
Region: Latin America
Team Name: Kookei Studio
About the team. Kookei Studio is made up of two teammates, Leonardo Trench and Gabriele Priuli, both from the State of São Paulo in Brazil. They are currently in their 3rd year of university and are studying Information Systems.
About the app. Match Cube is a gaming app involving strategy and speed, where users match falling cubes according to color within a certain time limit. As he was researching various features in a game creation tool, Leonardo came across a falling cube and decided he wanted to develop a game using that general concept. When it came to app development, Leonardo and Gabriele had to build their knowledge base essentially from scratch, an impressive feat considering the consistently high ratings that their app has received in the Play Store thus far. The team maintains that the key to their early success was the ability to be creative and persistent, particularly in the face of challenges.
REGIONAL WINNER 4: High Explosive
Region: Europe, Middle East, Africa
Team Name: Archon Interactive
About the team. Casper Christiansen and Lucas Eliasen make up the illustrious team Archon Interactive, and are the brains behind the addictive gaming app High Explosive. Both Casper and Lucas come from Zealand, an island region of Denmark, and attend GameIT College in Grenaa. They’re currently studying a mix of HTX (Higher Technical Examination) and game development.
About the app. High Explosive is a puzzle/action game where users use the protagonist bomb to help them explode their way to the exits. To come up with their concept, Casper and Lucas spent many hours brainstorming amongst themselves, trying to think of a game that would be both engaging and different enough from other apps in the marketplace. Once they had the basic concept, they reached out to others to confirm the validity and value of the idea. When they began building the app, both Casper and Lucas were still fairly inexperienced as developers. However, they viewed the opportunity to learn new skills as a fun challenge, and resolved to start small and build upon their original idea in a consistent and measured way.
Congratulations to all the winners and thanks again to every single student who participated!
We had hundreds of app submissions from more than 90 countries and hosted more than 50 events worldwide. Our 5 winning apps have made a huge splash in the Google Play Store, and have already amassed over 300,000 downloads and nearly 6,000 reviews combined.
After extensive review, the judging panel selected 4 Regional Winners and 1 overall Global Winner. Artavazd Mehrabyab, a judge for the challenge and Co-founder/COO of PicsArt, says he was honored to be a part of the challenge, which he considered “a great demonstration of the large global potential for app development among [a] younger generation.”
Regional Winners receive brand new Nexus tablets, and our Global Winner will receive a free trip to San Francisco and visit Google in Mountain View!
GLOBAL WINNER - Stacks Flashcards
Team Name: Centum
About the team. It is Phani Gaddipati, a student from Colorado Springs, Colorado, who takes home the first-place prize. Having grown up in Colorado, Phani currently studies Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.
About the app. Stacks Flashcards is an electronic flashcards app that allows users to memorize material by creating decks of cards, testing their knowledge, and viewing stats on their performance. After his first Organic Chemistry class in college, Phani quickly realized that passing the class would require a lot of memorization. As he searched for an app that would allow him to create flashcards electronically, Phani found a distinct lack of quality apps of this kind, and wanted to build something great on Android. He decided to create one of his own, working hard to make sure that it was easy to navigate with a clean and intuitive user interface. Phani considers user feedback to be crucial to the success of his app, and is constantly working to improve the app’s functionality. Congratulations Phani for being an all-star developer, and creating an app that solves a simple problem in a meaningful way!
REGIONAL WINNERS:
REGIONAL WINNER 1: India 2014 Elections
Region: Asia Pacific
Team Name: DV DROID
About the team. DV Droid is made up of 5 teammates, Darshan H, Venkatesh K B, Shivaprasad K S, Chiranthan K and Santhosh R, from Tumkur, India. The group met as high school students then separated for college, but each decided to pursue degrees in Engineering at their respective universities.
About the app. India 2014 Elections is an informative app that gives a complete historical overview of the Indian Elections results from as far back as 1947, as well as information regarding the most recent 2014 elections cycle. When the team got wind of the AdMob Student challenge, the General Elections in India were fast approaching. They decided to capitalize on the opportunity to create an app that raised awareness among Indian citizens as to the importance of elections and the value of each and every vote. They set out to provide the public with an app that provided useful information in a beautiful way, and judging by its positive reception and success in the app store, they more than succeeded in their mission!
REGIONAL WINNER 2: Headphone Connect
Region: North America
Team Name: Skytrait Mobile
About the team. Skytrait Mobile is the brain-child of Gabriel Brandão, the team’s one and only member. Of Portuguese descent, Gabriel was born in Taiwan and is currently a junior at Towson University just outside of Baltimore, Maryland. In addition to his work, Gabriel would like to acknowledge his friend and classmate Juli Phillips, whom he regularly relied upon for user feedback and testing.
About the app. User simplicity was the foundation upon which Headphone Connect was developed. An “on action” based app, Headphone Connect allows users to assign certain apps to launch automatically as soon as their headphones are plugged in. Gabriel had seen apps that claimed to accomplish this purpose, but most were confusing and hard to set up. Sensing a gap in the market, Gabriel worked hard to create an app with a clean interface, simple setup and useful function. So far, the app has received nearly 2,000 5-star reviews on the Play Store and has been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times.
REGIONAL WINNER 3: Match Cube
Region: Latin America
Team Name: Kookei Studio
About the team. Kookei Studio is made up of two teammates, Leonardo Trench and Gabriele Priuli, both from the State of São Paulo in Brazil. They are currently in their 3rd year of university and are studying Information Systems.
About the app. Match Cube is a gaming app involving strategy and speed, where users match falling cubes according to color within a certain time limit. As he was researching various features in a game creation tool, Leonardo came across a falling cube and decided he wanted to develop a game using that general concept. When it came to app development, Leonardo and Gabriele had to build their knowledge base essentially from scratch, an impressive feat considering the consistently high ratings that their app has received in the Play Store thus far. The team maintains that the key to their early success was the ability to be creative and persistent, particularly in the face of challenges.
REGIONAL WINNER 4: High Explosive
Region: Europe, Middle East, Africa
Team Name: Archon Interactive
About the team. Casper Christiansen and Lucas Eliasen make up the illustrious team Archon Interactive, and are the brains behind the addictive gaming app High Explosive. Both Casper and Lucas come from Zealand, an island region of Denmark, and attend GameIT College in Grenaa. They’re currently studying a mix of HTX (Higher Technical Examination) and game development.
About the app. High Explosive is a puzzle/action game where users use the protagonist bomb to help them explode their way to the exits. To come up with their concept, Casper and Lucas spent many hours brainstorming amongst themselves, trying to think of a game that would be both engaging and different enough from other apps in the marketplace. Once they had the basic concept, they reached out to others to confirm the validity and value of the idea. When they began building the app, both Casper and Lucas were still fairly inexperienced as developers. However, they viewed the opportunity to learn new skills as a fun challenge, and resolved to start small and build upon their original idea in a consistent and measured way.
Congratulations to all the winners and thanks again to every single student who participated!