Code Girls United is developing an app to digitize fleet management for the Kalispell Police Department.
The afterschool program’s 10-week initiative was presented and demonstrated to Kalispell Police Chief Jordan Venezio and a room full of members and their families Monday at the nonprofit’s recently renovated space in the Gateway Community Center. I did.
The app was developed by 13 junior high and high school girls in the senior group and is a daily process that records and tracks vehicle condition, maintenance, and usage of equipment on board, such as CPR masks and first aid kits. Simplify. .
“It gives us an instant visual indication of the condition of the vehicle, whether it is available for use by the officer or not. [or] Are the police officers checking it out?” said Amy Moore Moore, a volunteer instructor with Code Girls United.
Moore and Code Girls United founder and executive director Marianne Smith said the students are learning college-level skills.
“We use modern software and digital tools to do this,” says Moore, a software engineer. “I use it every day at work.”
Venezio initially approached Code Girls about developing an app. He said he first learned about the nonprofit organization in 2016 when he was a school resource officer. He says when he learned they were trying to solve problems in the community, he thought it was a great opportunity to partner.
KPD has a fleet of approximately 30 vehicles. Benezio said the department’s 13 or 14 patrol cars are the most used.
“It’s still a slow process, but it’s working,” Moore said during his presentation.
“It’s amazing,” Venezio said.
“Yeah?” Moore said with a laugh.
“Yes, thank you to everyone who worked on this,” he said.
He said it should save time and money because officers have a lot of things to track every day.
“We protect our taxes,” Venezio said, noting that purchasing the software can cost thousands of dollars in maintenance fees.
“Being able to do this digitally is going to have a huge impact on our staff because it’s so easy to do. And there’s not a day that goes by that our executives aren’t using your app. So I hope you’re really proud of that. “I think it’s great,” he said. “I took some notes, but I’m a little surprised,” Venezio said.
Administratively, he said it’s great that KPD patrol commanders can see the entire list of vehicles.
“On my way here, I got a call from a patrol captain. We’re really worried about our fleet right now because of supply issues,” he said, referring to the National Auto Workers strike. . “So all of these vehicles that we had to order were further delayed.
code The female student used the programming language JavaScript. React Native, a mobile app framework. Moore said he needs Firebase to connect to a database and store data. She also explained what software was used to allow users to view the app.
“Once you’ve coded an app, you need a way to display it. That’s why we use Expo Go, a compiler that translates languages and displays information on a screen where you can actually interact with it. ” she continued to explain.
Although the project team was 13 people, the group needed a way to share and save their progress, which they did on GitHub, a cloud-based service, she said.
“So while we were developing the app, there was a lot of work pushing and pulling code from the cloud to all of our laptops every day. We certainly had some challenges,” she said. Told.
This app is available for both Apple and Android devices.
Moore and Code Girl members Isabel Ashley and Makayla Davenport said the next step will be to address security. The ultimate goal is to create an app that can be used by other police departments and emergency response agencies in the valley.
Ashley is a high school senior who plans to go into computer science, and Davenport is a high school senior. Both of us have come a long way since developing our first app when we were in 5th grade and her in 4th grade. It was a spelling app for elementary school students that he programmed using block coding and his MIT App Inventor. Both of her home-educated teens stayed at Code Girls, which is open to students from fourth grade through her eighth grade, to continue their studies and served as interns and leadership roles during the summer. .
Davenport and Ashley were both part of a team that developed an app to combat human trafficking that won the 2022 Spirit of Montana Award.
“This is just a great program,” Davenport said. “I learned so much. This has really shaped my life and now I feel confident as a woman going into a STEM field. [science, technology, engineering and math] And I’m really excited to get into this field of computer science. ”
The program also serves about 500 members in Flathead County and other counties across the state, Smith said. The free after-school program also teaches business skills as students pitch their apps and present their business plans to competition judges.
“We’re trying to get more women in these fields, but our approach is to attack them when they’re young, instead of attacking them when they’re in high school. , it’s about getting them interested. It’s about solving problems that they care about, and that’s why we work on these community issues,” Smith said.
Girls used to code
“They want to save the world,” Smith said. “So we help them recognize the issues at hand.”
For more information, please visit https://codegirlsunited.org.
Contact reporter Hilary Matheson at 758-4431 or hmatheson@dailyinterlake.com.