BrainQuest wins Rep. Tracey Mann’s 2025 Congressional App Challenge in Kansas’s First District
Rep. Tracey Mann has named Daniel Dao of Lawrence Virtual School as the winner of the 2025 Congressional App Challenge in Kansas’s First District. Their app BrainQuest helps people of all ages sharpen their minds and boost their critical thinking skills with engaging challenges in math, logic, trivia, and classic brain teasers.
When asked what inspired the creation of BrainQuest, Daniel Dao said, “At the end of 2024, Oxford University Press named ‘brain rot’ the Word of the Year—a phrase that perfectly captures our growing anxiety about how endless scrolling and low-effort digital content may be dulling our ability to think deeply. This wasn’t just a hunch, as studies have shown a measurable decline in critical thinking skills within society, especially among students. The term immediately caught my attention and pushed me to explore how I could strengthen my own critical thinking through existing digital tools. After testing several brain training apps on the market, I discovered that most lacked variety and engagement, which made the experience dull and monotonous. Motivated to change that, I combined my passion for coding with my interest in cognitive development to create BrainQuest—an app designed to make critical thinking engaging and rewarding for everyone.”
The 2025 Congressional App Challenge marked another record-setting year for the program. A total of 394 Members of the U.S. House of Representatives hosted App Challenges in their congressional districts, the highest level of participation in the program’s history. More than 13,800 students from across the country participated, submitting over 4,600 original apps focused on real-world challenges ranging from health and accessibility to education, sustainability, and civic engagement.
The Congressional App Challenge is an official initiative of the U.S. House of Representatives that encourages middle school and high school students to learn to code, explore computer science, and build practical technology solutions for their communities. Each participating Member of Congress selects a winning app from their district, and winning teams are invited to showcase their projects to Members of Congress, staff, and industry leaders at the annual #HouseOfCode celebration on Capitol Hill.
The Challenge is proudly bipartisan and reflects a shared commitment to expanding access to STEM education and preparing the next generation of American innovators for the future workforce. The program is a public-private partnership made possible through funding from the Broadcom Foundation, AWS, Infosys Foundation USA, theCoderSchool, Apple, and others.
The 2026 Congressional App Challenge will launch in May, and eligible students can pre-register for the competition now.