Minnetonka High School students and staff are navigating the daily schedule a bit more easily this year, thanks to the hard work and creativity of a couple of students in the high school’s Computer Science club. 

Last winter, MHS Principal Jeff Erickson offered a challenge. Although the high school’s new Anchor Time schedule allowed greater access for individualized student support in all classes, with a rotating longer class period built into the school day, the variability between days and weeks made it difficult for some students and teachers to keep track of when classes started and ended. 

Students Archibald Haddley-Morris ‘25 and Razeen Abdul-Field ‘25 immediately tackled the problem. They examined how they might use the skills they’d developed in their computer science classes to make life a little smoother for their community. 

Their answer was Student Assist—an app accessible to MHS students and teachers that functions like a countdown clock, noting exactly what period of the school day is currently in session and how many minutes remain until the next. The app is customizable based on the user’s selected lunch period, as well. 

On a busy day, the app’s daily users now exceed 2,000, but it was a long journey to take the idea from a concept to a usable solution. “We launched it softly before we brought on another student for rebuilding the user interface,” said Haddley-Morris. Ren Watanabe ‘25, a student in VANTAGE Computer Science at the time, learned of the project and redesigned the app for fun before meeting Abdul-Field and Haddley-Morris. Watanabe continues to work with the Student Assist team. Dris Elamri ‘25 also joined to support problem-solving when issues in the app were identified.

Throughout the spring and summer, the team worked together to respond to user feedback and continuously worked to improve their product, responding to the needs of their peers. At the start of the 2024-25 school year, Student Assist was shared with MHS students and staff as a resource and integrated with the media center’s display screens. 

“The team was constantly looking for feedback and taking in input from student and staff users to make their work better,” said Nick Bahr, their teacher and the chair of the Minnetonka High School Computer Science Department. “I’ve loved seeing their ideas come to life. Computer science is a field where, with a laptop and drive, you can create beautiful things. Seeing our students make things better and develop their professionalism is incredible.” 

Leading the team through the feedback process was one of the biggest moments of growth for Haddley-Morris. He chose to view all feedback–even if it was negative–with excitement. “It meant that at least people had an opinion,” he shared. “The negative opinions meant they did want the app—they just wanted it to be better than it was now.” 

The MHS Computer Science Club has worked on other projects, including fixing elementary school 3D printers and developing ideas related to high school course registration. The group continues to seek ways to use their skills to help others.

To learn more about Computer Science course opportunities at Minnetonka High School, visit the Department’s page of the Skipper Log.