By: Elizabeth Petrov, Serena Chang, and Xavier Lu

 

Ideas are the start of everything. They are the first steps in any great invention or innovation. As light bulbs, calculators, computers, and phones were invented and developed, a magnificent virtual platform was developed to inspire ideas. Now, in 2017, everything is convenient through apps. To text a crush, just start a Snapchat streak! Need a ride home? Call an Uber! People are getting increasingly impatient now with the shortcuts around corners of daily life. Especially for younger generations where 7 year olds have iPad’s and social media plays an unbelievable part in everyday life, technology has become an essential part of life.

Instagram and Twitter are where people find the best memes, best photos and everyone’s opinions on everything. In high school, where social media is a lifestyle, no one wants to be crowded with school schedules in their feeds. People also don’t want to text their schedules to every one of their friends. It’s a drag! We developed the app Class Reveal for a quick fix.

From one speck of an idea sprouted from round trips to a local coffee shop, an app was born. Jason Zhu and Srinivasan Srinivas, now attending Carnegie Melon University and the University of Maryland, respectively, handed their idea off to Liz Petrov and Xavier Lu. As cloudy eyed sophomores with specialties in coding, they set off to make this a reality. Fluent in 13 computer science languages, Xavier Lu took over database coding with mySQL and Liz Petrov, a NCWIT 2017 Aspirations in Computing National Award recipient, then completed coding for exterior appearances and iOS publishing. Together with extensive lists of national achievements in computer science, they completed the app for use in 2016. As two thousand students from West Windsor Plainsboro High School South were introduced to this alternative, they were ecstatic.

Class Reveal took off. Through posts in different class Facebook groups, the app had 600 users in an hour after schedules came out. By the end of the week, there were around 2000 spread across 3 platforms: iOS, Android and web.

Excited about our success, we did not expect adversity at first. With so many users, our database couldn’t support all the server calls so the app lagged often. Needless to say, we received many questions about technical support and had ideas for future improvements.

In order to polish Class Reveal, we asked some high school hackers to infiltrate our systems and databases. Now, with more security detail and refinement of our app, we have completed the second version of Class Reveal.

Even with technical difficulties with such a limited team, we reached our goal: to provide a go-to alternative for sharing schedules on social media. Instagram stopped being the platform for sharing schedules and Class Reveal became the app.

Without the graduated seniors Jason and Srinivasan, the Class Reveal team halved. We found another team member in our friend, Serena Chang. She is going to be a junior and is in charge of all our social media, publicizing, and marketing pursuits. With a solid team, our goal now is to reach 10,000 students and potentially, all schools across the United States.

Spread the word! Our second version of Class Reveal will be available on the App Store, Google Play Store, and web by mid-late August! And if you are Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, or Tim Cook, please give us a call 😉 –but either way: mark the date.

 

Class Reveal: Coming to a high school near you in late-August.