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Johnson County senior wins Congressional App Challenge with his school workflow workaround
Drake Semchyshyn turned a personal pain point at school into an award-winning app.
The Blue Valley West senior created Catalyst — designed to improve students’ academic experience within Canvas, a widely used learning management system — winning the 2025 Congressional App Challenge for Kansas’ Third District.
“The Canvas student application basically manages grades, assignments, submissions, and communication with teachers,” Semchyshyn explained. “The current application — at least in my opinion — has some flaws. It’s a little bit hard to use, and especially for students, there’s some deadlines that you might miss otherwise.”
Semchyshyn’s app works alongside Canvas to give students more control over their coursework, he noted, allowing them to organize assignments in a to-do list format, customize color themes, set personalized notifications, and better manage deadlines.
“It provides you with a better user experience to submit and communicate,” said Semchyshyn, who took feedback from his peers during the process.
The Congressional App Challenge is a nationwide competition hosted by the U.S. House of Representatives to encourage middle and high school students to learn to code and pursue careers in computer science and other STEM-related fields, according to the office of Third District U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, D-Kansas.
“Kansas students are incredibly creative, and Drake’s app is a great example of how young people can use technology to solve real problems they see in their everyday lives,” Davids said in a news release. “The Congressional App Challenge is about encouraging innovation, building confidence, and opening doors to STEM careers — and Drake’s work shows exactly why investing in students and education matters.”
A still image from Drake Semchyshyn’s video entry for the Catalyst app in the Congressional App Challenge; courtesy image
The senior’s computer science teacher encouraged him to join the challenge, noted Semchyshyn, who has received requests from other instructors to make them a companion app to Catalyst.
“I just like building applications in my free time,” he humbly acknowledged.
In that free time — which is limited since Semchyshyn is involved in volleyball, band, robotics, and National Honor Society — he’s developed apps to help the marching band keep track of inventory as it’s loaded onto the truck and to help National Honor Society keep track of points, he continued.
“I’ve built a lot,” he added. “I lose track of all of them.”
As the Third District winner of the Congressional App Challenge, Semchyshyn — who plans to attend either Kansas State or Iowa State after high school to study computer engineering so he can continue his passion of building apps — will get the opportunity to travel to Washington D.C. in mid-April.
And as the local winner, Catalyst will be put on display in the U.S. Capitol Building for one year.
“I think it will be really cool just to connect with (the other winners) and see what they have built,” he said, “and the problems that they’re facing and were able to program solutions to. I think it will just be cool to get more perspectives on what other people are building around the country.”
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