SwiftUI is really helpful for making apps and games feel super interactive, because I can quickly prototype not only how something’s going to look, but how it’s going to feel.
I know it can be really overwhelming, but the only way to actually learn is to get fully immersed in it — get uncomfortable. The tools are all literally within reach; you have them all right here.
Developers decode their journeys from app ideas to App Store
Meet three Swift Student Challenge winners crafting immersive apps with a uniquely human touch; submissions for next year’s challenge open February 6
Every year, Apple’s Swift Student Challenge celebrates the creativity and ingenuity of student developers from around the world, inviting them to use Swift and Xcode to solve real-world problems in their own communities and beyond. Submissions for the 2026 challenge will open February 6 for three weeks, and students can prepare with new Develop in Swift tutorials and Meet with Apple code-along sessions.
Former Swift Student Challenge winners Brayden Gogis, Adrit Rao, and Sofia Sandoval have experienced firsthand how app development can unlock creativity and curiosity, strengthen their critical thinking, and lay the foundation for exciting careers. By harnessing cutting-edge technologies like machine learning and spatial computing, they’ve gone on to craft full-fledged apps and games imbued with warmth and a uniquely human touch.
Below, the three share their journeys in app creation, from learning how to code, to submitting their projects to the Swift Student Challenge, to launching their first apps and games on the App Store.
Brayden Gogis doesn’t remember a time when he wasn’t completely fixated on games in all forms. “In preschool, when they asked us to dress up as what we wanted to be when we grew up, I dressed up like a game show host,” he recalls.
In second grade, when he first discovered the App Store on his iPod touch, that enthusiasm ratcheted up to a whole new level. “My dad showed me a game that was made by a 14-year-old, and I thought that was so cool,” says Gogis.
Making a game for a traditional console felt out of reach, but creating a game for the App Store felt accessible, so he scoured the web for tutorials and learned everything he could about coding.
When Gogis entered the 2019 Swift Student Challenge, he won with his now-published app Solisquare, a reimagined take on the classic card game with quick gestures and an intuitive, hands-on feel. “SwiftUI is really helpful for making apps and games feel super interactive, because I can quickly prototype not only how something’s going to look, but how it’s going to feel,” Gogis says.
The 21-year-old, now a senior at Taylor University in Upland, Indiana, brought that same personal touch to his latest App Store release, Joybox, a social media app that allows users to create groups and add photos, stories, and songs to their collective Joybox, and select a time to open the box together. Built with SwiftUI and UIKit, the app features elaborate backgrounds, morphing gradients, and haptics to replicate the sense of physically writing down a memory and putting it into a box, and allows users to share songs via integration with Apple Music.
“The reason I enjoy coding is because I love people, and I want to improve people’s lives in whatever way I can,” says Gogis. “It’s so good for your brain to take five minutes every day and focus on what you’re grateful for, and share that with other people.”
Adrit Rao was first introduced to block programming when he moved to Palo Alto, California, in elementary school, and he taught himself the basics of coding during the COVID-19 pandemic. From the very beginning, he was struck by the problem-solving possibilities app creation enables.