With an idea as good as an app that predicts whether or not school will be cancelled due to inclement weather, two students didn’t let having to learn to program and develop the app stop them.
Scott Fink, a UC engineering freshman, and his high school friend and William and Mary student, Matt Sniff worked through the warm summer months to create the app, the Snow Day Calculator, that calculates the possibility of a snow day based on several algorithms.
“After all, what more do students want than to know they could potentially have a snow day? Fink says. “The Snow Day Calculator popped into my head, and we started writing the algorithm and developing graphics.”
The app was released for both Android and iPhone platforms in December the 99 cent app has since been downloaded hundreds of times, even reaching number 26 in the Apple App store weather rankings.
Just like many other apps, once a good idea was seen, people try to copy and compete with apps by making modified versions.
“Someone copied our idea about a week after us and came out with a similar app for $1.99. So, we have had to effectively market the app and prove that ours is just as good or better for less money,” Fink says.
Fink and Sniff have other Internet and computer related ventures they are trying to capitalize on. Photorankr.com, an amateur photography website, where people can share and rank photos. The site uses algorithms to find which photos are being ranked highest and trending the most at any moment. Another venture is one Sniff has developed at William and Mary is collegecambio.com, a site were students can not only buy and sell textbooks, but they can buy and sell just about anything else, talk about professors and classes, arrange rides home, or anything else they could possibly need.
“It has been extremely rewarding to see some real results from our hard work. It's important to translate learning into real world experience,” Fink says.
By Evan Wallis
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