Students involved in the Computer Science Academy (CSA) recently placed first in the University of Kansas School of Engineering’s high school design programming competition.

The winning team members were Cameron Johnson and Matrim Besch, juniors; Drake Prebyl and Aron Wiley, seniors. Each won a $500 scholarship and they will be recognized at a Board of Education meeting.

For the contest, students competing had to complete “10 programing problems, using code, that got more difficult as they moved on,” Tim Shipley, team sponsor, said.

This was not the only the only contest students involved with the academy took part in. Students on the CyberFalcons A-D teams made it through the first round with a gold rating in the Cyber Patriot contest.

The students competing were mainly enrolled in the Cyber Security class. The students got simulated work place files that they needed to review in order to make them safe and workplace appropriate.

Willow Vaughn, senior, learned many things from the contest, including that “it is hard to be a network administrator because you really need that real world experience.”

There are five rounds total, and the teams will compete next on Dec. 9.

To get involved in the CSA program, students should sign up for the program in the eighth grade. They follow a four-year curriculum throughout high school and must stay in a math class all four years. Students also have to complete a total of 200 extra curricular hours, or E hours, by following a special curriculum and doing activities involving their program outside of class.