WASHINGTON – Today, Congressman Alex X. Mooney is pleased to announce Lucas Kniska and Ethan Tomlinson, juniors at Trinity Christian School in Morgantown, as the winners of the 2023 Congressional App Challenge for West Virginia’s Second Congressional District.
Lucas and Ethan created the app, ObjecTracer. The app utilizes artificial intelligence to help identify security threats. They were particularly focused on using the app to improve school safety.
Lucas and Ethan said of their app, “We were originally inspired to work with artificial intelligence by its usefulness in improving safety. Over summer our team created a machine learning algorithm which would detect weapons from security cameras outside of schools. We wanted to continue learning about AI, and we wanted to make our findings widely available. To achieve this, we decided on bringing our algorithm to a mobile app.”
Congressman Alex X. Mooney said of the app, “I congratulate Lucas and Ethan on their ingenuity. Their winning app could be a gamechanger for school security. Every year, I am impressed by the collection of stellar applications we receive. West Virginia is budding with young engineering and tech talent, and I wish them the best in their future endeavors.”
Click HERE to watch a video to learn more about their application.