Colin Long, 1st, Youth-East
About Colin Long: I am 15 years old, and I am from the Montgomery County. I have lived in Glenside, PA, since my date of birth. I attend Roman Catholic High School in Philadelphia, and attended St. Luke's Catholic School in Glenside. I am involved in many clubs and sports: Mock Trial, newspaper, Students Against Destructive Decisions, tennis, and golf.
Judges' statement
Colin's is a very good, strong map. His District Builder scores reflect this. This is his last of three maps. Improvement was obvious with every map. Making rational trade-offs, Colin successfully balanced his three goals. His population equivalency and competitiveness stand out.
Personal statement
My performance making this map have led me to proceed with the ability to grow, and share my map with others. So far in this competition, this will be my third map, and the results got more competitive with each map submission. My main objective in this competition was the competitiveness. Though, there were many places on the map that the competitiveness was prodigiously sided with more populated cities in Pennsylvania seeing a Democrat take-away. The suburban area of Pennsylvania led me to believe the Republicans had an advantage. Trying to connect the urbaness, and the ruralness of Pennsylvania, had me connecting them district wise making them competitive within a ten percent area. The most outstanding thing I've completed would definitely be the competitiveness among the districts. I was willing to put much effort, and time toward this map, and its competitiveness.
The second topic I had choose was contiguity. Contiguity was important when dealing with the borders touching each district, and the impression of my map to show others that the lines were county-line-close as possible. This turned out to be a very smooth, and organized map, as the competitions guidelines have asked for, and I hope that my map was what this competition was seeking. Contiguity was also an advantage for my map as each of the 18 districts were touching each other making it a smooth, and good looking map. This also effected the population difference on my map at a very low number.
Lastly, minority representation. This topic looked stunning on my map with each district showing diversity with races, and ethnicity being represented. This was key when making it a priority to represent minority in each district. It was important to draw the city districts as diversified as possible!
Overall, competitiveness, minority representation, and contiguity were shown impressively on my map, and I give thanks to this committee for giving me the opportunity to learn, excel, and accomplish tasks that I set myself up for, and the tasks, the committee had given me!
(Editor's note: This personal statement was updated at the request of the mapmaker, 1/30/2019. Judging was completed on a previous statement.)