Applying himself

Name: Brandon Shaw age: 15 Biz:

Brandflakes Apps

A 15-year-old with an iPhone is going to download apps for it. That is for sure. But 15-year-old Brandon Shaw doesn’t just download apps. He makes them.

Shaw, who lives in Lakewood and will be a sophomore at Lakehill Prep, wrote his first iPhone app in eighth grade. It was simple, just a tree that grows on the screen.

Last year, he made an app called Solo Drumming. It’s a picture of a drum kit, whichShawdrewbyhand. You tap different parts of the kit to make drum sounds.

Next, he designed a game, Zii, where you make a tiny alien hop up stairs; along the way, the alien has to avoid rockets.

The first day Zii was released in the Apple App Store in November, about 500 people downloaded it for free. Since then, it gets as many as 15 downloads a day.

Shaw hasn’t turned out the next Angry Birds or Words With Friends yet, but he’s still working on new apps. His next project is a quiz game, and he hopes “to get bigger stats with that one.”

He expects to offer the new game for free, too. But he’s also thinking of ways to profit from his apps.

“There are lots of ways to make money with an app,” he says. “You can put ads in them. You can give part of the game away for free and then ask them to pay for more features inside the game.”

Although Shaw says there are kids his age all over the globe making apps, he doesn’t know any others who are local. He learned some programming in computer classes at Lakehill. But he learned how to make apps online.

“Ijustmadeone,anditactually worked,” he says.

When he has questions about something he’s working on, he usually turns to online forums for help.

LakehillPrepspokeswomanGigi Ekstrom says she downloaded Shaw’s drumming app to her iPhone.

“I went home and showed it to my son,” she says. “I just thought it was so neat that I could go on my phone and download it.”

Thehelp Japan Lemonade Stand

NAME: Dasha Ramey

AGE: 7

BIZ: Help Japan Peace Love Lemonade

When 7-year-old Dasha Ramey saw the Japan earthquakes and tsunami on TV, it made her sad.

“She said, ‘Mom, we really need to do something to help Japan,’ ” says Dasha’smom,HollyLynch.“Isaid, ‘What do you think you could do?’ ”

The first-grader was silent for severalminutes,andthenshesaid, “Lemonade.”

That night, she and her 6-year-old brother, Van Alex, made a sign: “Help Japan Peace Love Lemonade”. The next day, they started selling lemonade in front of their Forest Hills home.

The first weekend, they made $80. They sold the drink for 25 cents a cup, but they said customers often handed them bills and told them to keep the change.

Dashasetupherlemonadestand at White Rock Dog Park one Saturday morning. And she sold at her brother’s soccer games. That’s where Lynch really noticed her daughter’s commitment.

“She walked up to every single person on that field and asked them if they wanted to buy lemonade,” Lynch says. “And if they said ‘yes’, she would go get it and bring it to them.”

Once Lynch was sure the kids were committed, she set up a fundraising page for them at crowdrise.com.

Since then, their Help Japan Lemonade Stand has raised more than $1,400 for Save the Children. Mom and dad, Cole Ramey, match the donations.

“I want it to go to kids,” says Dasha, who also volunteers at Promise of Peace Community Garden, a summer camp and a senior citizens center. She’ll be a secondgrader at Lakehill Prep next year, and she says she’d like to be a teacher because “I like little kids, and I want to help them.”

Dasha expects to expand her fundraising this summer. She would like to raise money for kids in Haiti, too.

Donate to Peace Love Lemonade at crowdsource.com/ HelpJapanLemonadeStand.