Eight-year-old Plano ISD student recognized for developing educational apps | Plano Star Courier

During the initial onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic, Arshiya Roy, an eight-year-old student at Plano ISD, was given the tools to pursue a series of creative endeavors when her parents enrolled her in a coding class. virtual.

Two months after enrolling, she used her newly learned skills to create a smartphone app called “State Facts of the USA.”

The name is self-explanatory.

“I was actually very interested in learning about the 50 states of the United States, then when I was learning to code in my coding classes, I thought I could make an app about the 50 states of the United States in an organized way,” Roy mentioned.

The app displays an interactive map where users can learn about state birds, state flowers, popular tourist attractions, flag designs, and the capitals of each US state. It also includes quizzes on the subject.

First developed in January 2021, this was Roy’s second foray into app development. His first was a multiplication table app that taught users how to multiply numbers. The development of this application came in the middle of its instruction through an online coding course BYJU’s school of the future.

“She started from the very basic level,” said Roy’s father, Anirbid Roy, a software engineer. “Then she started moving on to other advanced stuff like this [State Facts of the USA] the app she developed. »

The development of State Facts of the USA prompted Roy to enter BYJU’s “Silicon Valley Challenge” competition, where she became a finalist. Most recently, she came in second place in the Dallas ISD STEAM competition.

Roy said she is now focused on the prospective development of an app with an interactive human body chart, with information for each anatomical part. Although considered a child prodigy in the discipline of coding, Roy said she aspires to one day become a doctor.