ZEELAND, Mich. — A 17-year-old from Zeeland has turned his love for cats and coding into an app that claims to translate what your feline friend is thinking.
Gibson DeGroot, a senior at Zeeland East High School, spent three months developing CatGPT, an iOS app that uses artificial intelligence to generate captions based on photos of cats.
"I have four cats, and one day, my mom actually came up with the idea for the app," DeGroot said. "I dived right into developing and I designed all the screens, and then wrote the code for it, then eventually developed it, released it, and then started advertising for it."
The teen's journey into app development stems from years of coding experience that began in childhood.
"I've been doing it ever since I was a little kid, so my dad is a programmer, and he got me when I was super young, into like, using basic block coding to make super basic games," DeGroot said.
DeGroot is heavily involved with his school's robotics team, Team 85 BOB, which stands for Built on Brains. His interests extend beyond typical teenage activities.
"I used to be a gamer, but not really much anymore. I make video games now. Yeah, I do code a lot. I make robots on my own, other than just with the robotics team," DeGroot said.
The app development process was a new challenge for the experienced coder.
"I've always wanted to make apps. It's been interesting to me. It's a different framework than I've used before," DeGroot said.
The response from his community has been overwhelmingly positive.
"I've shown it to a bunch of teachers. They've all loved it. My friends love it. They've kind of helped me with the business perspective of things like the actual logistics of how I'm going to market it," DeGroot said.
CatGPT is currently available on the iOS App Store, with plans to expand to Google Play. For DeGroot, this is just the beginning of his entrepreneurial journey.
"Now I kind of have this inspiration to go work on other projects if I want to. I have a license to develop for Apple and Google now, so I can release as many apps as I want," DeGroot said.
Looking toward the future, DeGroot plans to pursue a career within the tech industry.
"I'm hoping to go to community college, save a lot of money and get some credits and then transfer to a university once I really know what I want to do," DeGroot said. "I just want to make things that make people happy, cool apps, robots that are cool."
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