“Pick Up” smart phone app developed by two College of Charleston computer science students has won first place in the Charleston Defense Contractors Association Mobile App Competition.
“Pick Up” Students Tyler Newman and Ben Muldrow won “Best of Summit” as well as first place in the college category for their app called Pickup, a social app that allows users to create and join local pickup games for different sports. The developers hope to release the app on Apple’s App Store within the next few weeks.
“I came up with the idea for Pickup in my sophomore year when I wanted to play ultimate Frisbee® but couldn’t find enough people to participate,” says Muldrow. “I figured it would be convenient if there was a simple platform to create pickup games. I pitched the idea to my friend Tyler and he thought it was exciting. However, we didn’t start working on building the app until we heard about the CDCA Mobile App Competition.”
The results of the annual competition, which promotes science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education and careers to young people, were announced at the association’s defense summit on Dec. 6, 2017. The total prize pool for all winners is $10,000, but Newman and Muldrow don’t yet know how much of that amount they’ll receive.
Programs entered in the competition were evaluated on the scope of the problem 
addressed by the application, ease-of-use and positive user experience. The competition was open to students in middle school, high school and undergraduate or postgraduate institutions.
“We feel that the CDCA Mobile App Competition encourages students interested in computer science to pursue their own ideas outside of a traditional curriculum,” says Newman. “It was an honor to participate in this event and we encourage others who might be interested to enter in years to come.”
The Charleston Defense Contractors Association Mobile App Competition is an annual competition to promote science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education and careers to young people in the United States. The focus of the Mobile App Competition is to stimulate creative thinking and promote the entrepreneurial spirit while offering development support, marketing expertise, mentorship, and guidance for the participating students. Our competition solicits student-created applications on a platform of their choice. Students in middle school, high school, undergraduate or postgraduate institutions of higher learning are eligible.
The CDCA Mobile App Competition accepts creative ideas for unique applications that is able to run on either iOS phone or Android platforms. Entries are evaluated on the scope of problem addressed by the application, ease-of-use, and positive user experience. Categories in previous years covered Safety, Quality of Life, and Financial.