What is the Swift Student Challenge?
The Swift Student Challenge (SSC) is a competition organized by Apple. Students from around the world submit an app and its story, created using Swift and submitted as a Swift Playground.
Around 350 students are selected as Winners or Distinguished Winners worldwide. Among them, the top 50 students are selected as Distinguished Winners and are invited to Apple Park.
I was selected as a Winner this year.
Why I Decided to Apply
I first decided to apply after receiving an email from Apple Developer at the beginning of January.
I have always been a big fan of Apple, and the fact that there was a program where I could submit a project made with Swift encouraged me to give it a try.
My Project
The Initial Project
I submitted a project called RC Line.
RC Line was inspired by my own experience of having difficulty reading long passages. I wanted to create an app that could make reading easier by highlighting text one line at a time.
The app uses VisionKit’s OCR technology on iOS to extract text from images captured with a camera. It then divides the text into sections based on punctuation and highlights each section one at a time.
I decided to submit this project because it had a personal story behind it: I was building something to solve a problem I had experienced myself.
It also gave me an opportunity to use technologies provided by Apple while working on an area that is still not widely understood or recognized.
Changes I Made for the Challenge
To prepare for the SSC, I first tried to put my own experiences into words.
I talked with GPT and Gemini to better understand what I was actually struggling with and to describe those difficulties in as much detail as possible.
Based on what I discovered, I made improvements to both the user experience and the functionality of the app.
Some of the major changes included:
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Text-to-speech: I wanted a way to have the text read aloud when my eyes became tired, while keeping the same reading environment I was already comfortable with.
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Sidebar improvements: I optimized the sidebar to make its interactions smoother and changed the gesture direction so that it would be easier to operate.
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Blink detection: I added a feature that detects blinks using the front-facing camera and moves the highlighted line when a blink is detected. This gave users a way to control the highlighted line without touching the screen.
I repeatedly used the app myself during my commute, took notes on things that could be improved, and continued fixing those issues one by one.
Writing the English Submission
I spent about two weeks working on the English writing for my submission.
First, I summarized what I wanted to communicate in Japanese. Then, I wrote a Japanese draft before translating and refining it into English.
This process helped me think carefully about not only what I wanted to say about my project, but also why I had created it in the first place.
About Swift Playgrounds
Projects submitted to the SSC generally need to be created in the form of a Swift Playground.
You can use the Swift Playgrounds app on iPadOS or macOS, or use Xcode and select the Playground project format when creating the project.
I actually made a mistake here.
I originally developed my project without considering the Playground requirements and had to migrate it to a Playground about two weeks before the submission deadline.
Some packages and features are not available in the Playground environment, so I had to find alternative ways to implement some of the functionality I had originally built.
This taught me an important lesson: understanding the requirements and limitations of the platform before starting development can save a huge amount of time later.
What I Gained from Applying
I am really glad that I decided to apply.
I developed the project, wrote about it, and prepared the English submission largely by myself. Going through that entire process gave me much more confidence in my own abilities.
Through the SSC, I also had opportunities to connect with the community and meet new people.
Talking with people who share similar interests gave me new ideas and inspiration. More importantly, it helped me understand what kind of software I enjoy creating and what I want to do in the future.
The Swift Student Challenge was not just a competition for me. It became an opportunity to look back at my own experiences, turn them into a real product, and think more seriously about the kind of technology I want to create.