Frequently asked questions

The Congressional Award is the highest honor Congress gives to young Americans. Congress created it in 1979. There's no GPA requirement and no competition to enter — you set your own goals, log your hours, and prove you did the work.

It's a multi-year commitment across four areas: Volunteer Public Service, Personal Development, Physical Fitness, and a self-designed Expedition. Bronze and Silver levels build up to the Gold Medal, which is the top. In 2026, 877 people earned the Gold Medal. Carter started pursuing it his freshman year, and documenting the expedition on this site was partly a way to share the program with more students.

Read the full breakdown on the Congressional Award page →

It started with wanting to document the expedition. I kept notes on my iPhone from every day and every stop and took lots of pictures. I heavily used voice-to-text to get my thoughts out of my head.

Once I had the expedition page and showed it to people, they liked it but had questions. What was the Congressional Award? Who is Carter? Who, what, when, where, why, how? I used Claude to create additional pages — and that turned a webpage into a website.

I love to meet and connect with people. Having this website makes it easier for me to share what I do.

I have never created a website before this. If you have heard someone say they vibe coded something, that is pretty much what I did.

I used an AI tool, Claude, to ask it how to build a webpage, telling it what I wanted to do. It created an initial draft, and then I gave it feedback — and you do that over and over until you get something you like. You get an HTML file, but you can only view it on your computer.

When I was ready to get it on the internet, Claude recommended Netlify to host the page. I went to Netlify, created an account, and then went back to Claude. It walks you through the process, but it starts with uploading your HTML file to Netlify, which creates the webpage.

Updating the page was trial and error. I wanted to add photos. I had to give it feedback until I liked how the photos displayed. I wanted a map. I gave it a list of all the stops on the trip and used Google Maps to recreate the route. Again, lots of feedback to get to something I liked.

Claude knew how to create a webpage and then a website. You just have to follow directions and have an idea about what you want to say and show.

One problem using AI is that your chats get too long or stop working because of too many images. I learned to create a master requirements document that explains everything you did, so you can add it to a new chat and keep going.

You don't need to know how to code. You need a clear idea of what you want to say and show, and the patience to give an AI tool feedback until it looks right. Here's the whole approach, plus a free starter kit you can download or copy.

1. Paste a kickoff prompt into an AI tool. Describe your project and ask it to build a first draft as a single HTML file:

2. Work in a feedback loop. Look at the draft, say what to change, repeat. Be specific — "make the photos bigger and put two side by side" beats "make it look better."

3. Put it online. This site is hosted free on Netlify. Ask your AI tool to walk you through it.

4. Keep a master requirements document so when a chat gets too long, you paste it into a fresh one and keep going. The full starter kit above has a ready-made template.