WARNER ROBINS — Hahira brothers who have won the Eighth District Congressional App Challenge multiple times came in second in this year’s competition.

Aarin Dave and Aarav Dave, both students at Lowndes County High School, were named first runners-up for their app Redove, which uses extended reality technology to immerse long-term or isolated hospital patients into a world that provides a sense of freedom or familiarity, according to a release from the office of Rep. Austin Scott, district sponsor of the app challenge.

Last year, when Aarin was a 10th grader and Aarav was an eighth grader at Hahira Middle School, they collaborated on the winning app, ICUSpeak, which helps post-surgery patients to communicate.

The previous year, the brothers won for a school safety app, Safeology, which helps to control access to schools.

The year before that, Aarin Dave won on his own for a Life Skills app.

This year’s winners were Houston County High School students Micheal Do and Hieu Tran, who won first place with their app Signify, which generates a real-time translation of American Sign Language to English.

Signify collects images through a video recording using a mobile phone camera, Scott’s office said. It then uses a machine learning model that has been trained using hundreds of images to track a person’s finger and hand movements using sign language. It then compares these new gestures with the gestures it was trained on to classify and output the translation of the sign in English.

The Congressional App Challenge is an annual, nationwide event intended to engage students’ creativity and encourage their participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. This competition allows students to compete with peers throughout their own Congressional District by creating and exhibiting their software application, or “app,” for web, PC, tablet, mobile, or other platforms.

Winning apps from all participating Congressional Districts will be featured on the U.S. House of Representatives website and displayed in an exhibit in the U.S. Capitol Building.