From Sarasota to the U.S. Congress: Our 2025 Congressional App Challenge Win

Every STEMania program starts from the same belief: a student given real tools, a real problem, and a mentor who's done it before can build something that matters. In 2025, that belief produced our first national milestone.

Competing in the Congressional App Challenge — the U.S. Congress's annual software competition, judged district by district — a STEMania student built Cognitive Care Assistant, an app designed to support people managing cognitive-care needs. It won Florida's 17th Congressional District.

The project was led by Corbin Craig (programming), who built it alongside his brother Connor Craig (product, presentation, and demo videos). What makes the win matter to the Foundation isn't just the recognition — it's what happened next. Corbin now coaches the next cohort of STEMania students through their own Congressional App Challenge submissions, turning one win into a repeatable pathway for younger builders.

That's the model we're scaling: students who've done the work mentoring the students coming up behind them, with the Foundation providing the structure, the equipment, and the coaching so that any child — regardless of their school's resources — can take a real shot at building something real.

This is the first of many stories we'll tell here. The win in 2025 is where the coaching program began; the students in this season's cohort are where it goes next.