Editor's note: Shawn Cheeks was a Unidata Summer Intern in 2013 and again in 2014. He is a senior at Marshall University in Huntington, WV, majoring in computer science and applied math with a minor in meteorology. He plans to continue on to graduate school to eventually earn a PhD in atmospheric science.

During my internship last year with Unidata, I developed an Android version of a netCDF Subset Service form. Coming back this year, I wanted to expand my endeavors in mobile development by writing an application that works on all mobile platforms. To do this, I decided to use Apache Cordova because it takes a JavaScript/HTML file and packages it as a native application for any mobile platform. The product of choice this year was Unidata's radar data as it seemed to be a product well suited for mobile users.

Environmental Research Systems Institute, Inc. (Esri) is sponsoring an app-development contest with the theme of "using technology to create map tools that help communities see, understand, and prepare for climate risks." First prize in the contest is $10,000 or the equivalent in Esri software products.