Farmington Teen Creates New 'Apps' for College

It happens every summer. Harried parents crowd the aisles of stores juggling shopping carts, pens and paper and long lists of items their children need for college.

Last year, Elizabeth Staub was home in Farmington starting to think about what she needed for her freshman year at Tulane. Her younger sister Caroline – the organized, detailed one in the family – offered to help with a packing list.

“I’m very organized and making lists is very soothing for me,” explained the 17-year-old incoming senior at in Farmington and 2009 graduate of in West Hartford.

Caroline’s detailed list was comprised of 178 items, arranged in nine different categories such as clothing, bedding, toiletries, desk supplies, etc., and designed specifically for girls. Her sister loved it and shared it with her friends, who began asking Caroline for copies.

Caroline then had the idea of turning this exhaustive list into an app. She turned for help to her father David, who is a software engineer and owns a consulting business, Ness Inc., located in Kensington. Together they created the app.

Caroline installed the Apple iPhone Developers software on her computer and then designed the screens and layout. Her father shared his expertise with Objective-C, an object-oriented programming language that allows programs to be developed more intuitively and faster.

The next step was getting it approved by Apple and iTunes Connect, and according to Staub, that happened very quickly. By the first week in May, the app – called “The College Checklist” – went live on iTunes.

Staub quickly got to work creating another college checklist app – this time for boys. It’s called “The College Checklist for Guys,” and that has also now gone live on iTunes, she said.

Each app costs 99 cents to download; Apple gets one-third of the money and Staub receives the other two-thirds.

“My intent wasn’t to make money,” said Staub, who explained she is interested in computer science and design and has worked with her father to learn HTML and Java script programming.

Thus far, about 40 people have purchased and downloaded her first app – mostly from the U.S., but one sale came from England.

Staub has advertised the apps on Google and Facebook, and after learning that Google requires a website to go with an app, she and her dad created www.latestcraes.com. The website provides instruction and help for using the checklist apps, which Staub proudly noted give users the ability to keep track of the quantity of items purchased and can even create a hard copy of your final list.

A few must-have items when heading off to college, said Staub, include a bathrobe, “for walking down the hall to the bathroom,” and hand towels.

Her own sister didn’t pack all the suggested items, she laughed, explaining that her sister doesn’t wear a wristwatch and doesn’t use nail polish so she doesn’t need nail polish remover.

The guys' app is somewhat different from the app for girls. Staub said she changed the color of the background screen from sea foam green to orange and modified the list to 167 items. If that seems like a large number, she quickly explained that it includes small items like band-aids and toothpaste, but also “important items such as boxer shorts.”

Available on iTunes, the apps are compatible with the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.