Andrew Woan (Penn State) - Honorable Mention, West Higher Ed

About Andrew: I am a freshman at Pennsylvania State University. I love creating things. Just the typical cliche story but, ever since I was a kid I was always creating something, spaceships out of Legos or drawing "comics". Throughout my years, I went through different phases of what I wanted to create: photography and video through graphic design; music through short stories, and then finally programming, which is my focus. I want to make a really cool app, but ideas seem to be slow right now. I also want to focus on my education. Though creating something that another will use to get some sort of happiness is one of the greatest feelings.

Judges' Statement

Andrew is back. A previous Draw the Lines winner, he didn’t disappoint in round two.  We  loved his funny personal statement and the fact that he was able to draw 16 competitive districts. To do this, of course, his map is unorthodox. Andrew himself calls it “ugly” and says that it looks like a “gerrymandered map to ungerrymander.”  Pennsylvania famously had “Donald Duck Kicking Goofy” in the congressional map that was declared unconstitutionally gerrymandered in 2018. Andrew’s map now gives us the “Narwal,” the “Shiv,” and the “Crawfish.” We don’t imagine Pennsylvanians would want to live in this map, but he deserves an honorable mention for the dogged creativity he showed in leading the state this round in the number of competitive districts.

Personal statement

"Wow, what an ugly map," is probably what comes to mind first when looking at this map. For me on the other hand, I don't see that. I see a beautiful piece of work. It looks like scribbles, but the intricate, precise, handwork I used to paint this map is similar to that of an artist. Just kidding.

During the Spring 2019 competition, I created map called "Snakes" with 15 competitive districts. This year I wanted to do better than that. Sadly, I had to deal with college and final exams so I couldn't make other maps. However, I still want to be a part of this so I can watch gerrymandering get slain. Ever since I first heard about DrawtheLines PA, I've wanted the project to thrive.

Some have said this map looks like a gerrymandered map to ungerrymander, which is a perfect way to describe it. All in all, I wasn't planning for this map to compete with other submissions, but just to have some fun and a break from all the studying.

Hopefully, next contest I can create a map with 17 districts. And that map name will probably be "Even More Snakes". Thank you!