Tanner Winkelman has always been good at math, so when his mom, a real estate agent, needed to determine the square footage of a home, he was glad to help with the calculations.
However, he didn't stop there. Encouraged by his father, Bob, he designed an app to handle the task. Over a two-week period this summer, the 17-year-old went through the entire process, from designing the app to getting it listed in Apple's App Store.
"I didn't even know he was working on it," mother Jennifer Winkelman said. "We got him a (laptop) computer for his birthday in May. The next thing I knew, he wrote an app for it."
Not bad for a 17-year-old, especially considering Apple requires you to be 18 to list an app in the app store. Tanner and his dad got around that pesky requirement by listing Dad as the developer.
The app is called Square Feet Calculation Utility and can be downloaded to iOS devices for free.
"My dad says they're in extremely huge demand for anyone who can make an app," Tanner said. "He wanted me to do this. I thought it would be a great experience to make an app. So I made an app."
Apple requires app developers to have a web page that's affiliated with the app. So he created the page bobandtannersoftware.webs.com. People who want to use the calculator without downloading the app can go to another website Tanner created: squarefeetcalculator.neocities.org.
"One of his goals was just to be helpful," Bob said. "That's his personality."
The simple app lets users type in the number of feet and inches for the width and length of each room, then calculates the entire square footage of the home.
"I thought it was pretty cool," Jennifer said. "It was over my head. But that's the way they are, those kids today - so natural with all the technology."
Tanner is home-schooled and completed his requirements to graduate high school in three years. That will allow him to enter the University of Missouri-Rolla with his older brother, Lucas. They both will enter as freshmen.
Tanner hopes to study computer science and eventually become a computer programmer.
He already has plans for creating another app. He wants to make one that will allow people to type in various geographical points, then let the app calculate the shortest route to reach all of those destinations.
Bob said he's a "pretty proud dad.
"I was just proud of him, because he's such a soft-spoken guy," he said. "So it was neat for me to see him succeed and all his diligence pay off. We're pretty excited. We know him as being a good guy, a kind, strong Christian, servant-heart kind of guy. And to see him do well and get a pat on the back in this way is kind of exciting."
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