In a university with over 1,300 student organizations, one takes the cake for technological innovation in student-run projects. What makes the Aggie Coding Club, or ACC, stand out from other organizations is its drive for innovation and success in making aspects of student life easier.
As a current projects officer and incoming president of ACC, computer engineering junior Adeolayemi Bamgbelu has facilitated the formation of the organization’s group projects. Every semester, members get together to form teams with a combined goal of making an app.
“The goal of ACC is to be able to connect students with other students interested in computer science, give them career opportunities, workshops … a way to socialize the people, not only within their major but outside of their major too,” Bamgbelu said.
ACC hosts weekly socials and workshops to engage members in technical and community-building activities. While the club is often associated with engineering majors, it welcomes students from all majors and emphasizes that coding is a skill anyone can learn.
“ACC is open to all majors,” Bamgbelu said. “We have people that do hardware projects, people that do software projects … any major [can join].”
A striking example of the ACC’s campus-wide reach is shown in their projects. MaroonRides, as one example, is an app that builds upon Texas A&M’s official bus app, giving it new life through additional features. This app was developed and designed by visualization junior Kayley Vu, computer engineering junior Sumit Nalavade and computer science sophomore Brandon Wees. Vu designed the user interface for the app, a solution for students who found the original bus app unsatisfactory.
“The current school app wasn’t fitting our needs as students,” Vu said. “So we decided that we could make a better one.”
Since its release in January 2024, the MaroonRides app has sustained a large number of users, with over 10,000 using it weekly. It has reached new feats in app-store usage and topped 99% of apps in its retention rate. MaroonRides even features the ability to plan a trip, including stops and switches to different bus routes along the way.
“The biggest selling point of our app is the design aspect,” Wees said. “If you try to do anything on the A&M bus website, especially on mobile, it’s probably 5-7 taps. … One of the design considerations was, ‘What are the top things that someone wants to look at? Let’s make those within the first two taps.’”
Another platform finalized through ACC is AggieSeek. Developed and designed by computer engineering sophomore Sophia Phu and computer science sophomore Peter Phan, AggieSeek is a notification platform that streamlines the registration process, taking the weight off students’ shoulders.
“The whole point of our app is to solve a grievance that we had,” Phan said. “I mean, we’re all pretty aware of how stressful course registration can be. As a freshman, I created a scripting bot that notified me when seats opened up in classes. When I joined ACC, I thought this would be the perfect time to expand this into a more refined, polished project.”
So far, 700 users have signed up for registration notifications. But maintaining AggieSeek has proven challenging for the creators, who were forced to shut it down in December 2024 when the university made its main data source, Compass, private. Suddenly, they had to find another way to pull registration information from the A&M’s database.
“We had to rethink where we were pulling our data from,” Phan said. “So, we met with the registrar’s office. … They offered us access to the same data source as Howdy API [application programming interface] to get our information. Since then, it’s been pretty smooth sailing.”
AggieSeek prides itself on its fast-paced notification system, giving students the ability to register for an open seat in a class as soon as it becomes available, therefore filling a gap left by the university’s schedule builder.
“We thought by alerting students, that would be a great way to make sure they could know when a class opens up,” Phu said. “They’re notified as soon as possible and then have the opportunity to sign up, which is something that the schedule builder lacks.”
ACC strives to positively impact students by creating new opportunities for networking and developing their skills as creators.
“What sets our organization apart is that we have so many opportunities to not only meet other students within your majors, but also to build awesome things together,” Bamgbelu said. “ … As long as you have an idea on how you want to go about solving your problem, you’re able to get a group of 10-20 people who will be interested in your idea and help you make it a reality.”
