Whiz Kid: Seaholm Sophomore Creates iPad App

Patch spotlights young people in the Birmingham community who are successful, talented and just plain awesome. Today we introduce the latest Whiz Kid:

Russell Ladd

• Age: 15
  
• School:
  
• Achievement: Ladd has coded, designed and created the Apple iPad application (or "app") 'Blatch,' which was relesed by Apple on Oct. 21 and is now on sale for 99 cents. Blatch, he says, stands for block math.
  
  "It’s an arcade style matching game — there’s all these blocks on the screen and you start out with 72 and you match the blocks to the same color to remove them," Ladd said. "The goal is to try to remove all the blocks, but it's more complicated than that."
  
  Ladd receives 70 percent of the profits from his app sales. In total, Ladd said Apple has sold more than 300 copies of Blatch in 12 countries.
  
  Ladd is a self-taught programmer, learning much of the coding and design work with online tools such as 'Stanford on iTunes U.' Ladd said after picking up the basics of coding and programming on his own, he also attended two summers of the University of Michgan's iD Tech Camps, giving him the foundation he needed to create and release Blatch this summer and fall. In total, the app took four months to create, with Ladd often working on the app during his independent study course with Seaholm's Business Technology Department.
  
  At a presentation at the Nov. 1 meeting of the Birmingham Board of Education, Ladd said he contracted out the music to Seaholm junior Dylan Packard.
  
  Board member Lori Soifer said she was amazed at Ladd's accomplishments. "You basically invented something and it's out on the marketplace, which is kind of mind boggling," Soifer said.
  
  Similarly, Board President Susan Hill commented on his accomplishment, noting "The quality of Russell's character matches his intellect."

• Key to Awesomeness: However, Blatch isn't Ladd's first app. Ladd also created the app Polyfactor for Apple when he was in 8th grade, also for sale for 99 cents.
  
  "The most annoying thing are bugs and trying to figure out why the piece of code isn’t working like it’s supposed to or why the app is crashing," Ladd said. "The most difficult thing overall is getting it just right - to function and look just as you want it to look."
  
  In addition to working on his app designs, Ladd is a hard-working student. He said he is currently taking many advanced classes, such as BC Calculus, and will already be done with all of his required math courses by the end of the school year.
  
  "I like math, not as much as programming, but I get it. I think it’s very interesting, elegant subject," he said.
  
  Though he has a large knowledge base of his design craft, he said there is much he can learn in college and much more he wants to look into in terms of how internet servers work. He hopes to attend Stanford University once he graduates high school.
  
  "There is a lot I don’t know about technology yet; the internet is a mysetery to me. Like servers and how all that works — I don’t really know right now. I think that college has a lot to offer me," Ladd said. "I eventually would like to work for Apple on bigger projects than just apps."

Do you know a local young person who deserves applause for volunteer work this summer or for challenging how we think about the environment? Maybe academic, artistic or athletic achievements are worth sharing. Everyone deserves attention, and we want to tell these stories. Email any information and photos to Laura.Houser@patch.com.