Bryant High School Students Place Second at HighSchoolHack 2023
Bryant High School secured second place in the HighSchoolHack 2023 competition, which took place on May 6, 2023, at the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts (ASMSA) in Hot Springs, AR. The school's team consisted of Evan Sanders, Garrett Fuhrman, Thomas Anderson, and Gage Riemenschneider.
HighSchoolHack is a full-day computer science event for Arkansas high school students, featuring a series of challenges and puzzles in various fields such as reverse engineering, cryptography, programming, pen testing, web vulnerabilities, forensics, and more. The competition adopts a Jeopardy-style, capture-the-flag format that enables participants to expand their computer science and cybersecurity knowledge in an enjoyable way.
Several winning students expressed their motivations for participating in the event. Thomas Anderson said, "I chose [to participate] because I thought it'd be fun and I'm hoping I get to learn more about coding and computer functionality." Evan Sanders shared, "Ms. Qualls said it would be cool and we agreed."
The challenges for HighSchoolHack were created by students from ASMSA. Jayden Patel, one of the game makers, remarked, "Seeing the students both struggle and ultimately succeed perfectly outlined the learning process." Brent Orlina, another game maker, shared, "Guiding students through the challenges and watching them slowly get to the right answer was an awesome experience. It was also great seeing creative solutions to some of the challenges, which let me learn some new things as well."
Event organizer Nicholas Seward praised Bryant High School's performance, stating, "I was super impressed by Bryant being a first-time team and convincingly winning second."
