Students from Red Bank Regional High School took home honors at a computer science competition.
On March 17, three teams from Red Bank High’s Academy of Information Technology (AOIT) finished in the top five of a computer coding competition at Stockton University, according to a press release from the high school.
According to the press release, a total of six teams and 17 students from Red Bank High participated in the competition at the college that is located in Galloway Township.
The students were brought to Stockton University by AOIT teachers Jeremy Milonas and Alison Sweeney.
The competition saw participation from 130 students and 12 New Jersey high schools, according to the press release.
The Red Bank High team of Jack McNally, Little Silver, Bobby Villaluz, Shrewsbury, and Andrew Schembor, Shrewsbury, finished in second place.
The team of Dylan McRae, Union Beach, Jake Glauber, Shrewsbury, and Makoto Brown, Tinton Falls, placed third. Taking one of the two honorable mention categories was the team of Harry Jain, Red Bank, Damanbir Sahi, Neptune Township, and Ford Zacks, Red Bank.
According to the press release, the competition presented seven programming challenges over the course of 2.5 hours. The competition required students to think critically, analyze data and write programs to overcome the challenges posed.
The winning teams were determined by the ability to finish the greatest number of challenges in the shortest period of time. The first and second teams finished all seven challenges, with the fastest speed determining first place.
“The coding competition offered our AOIT students an amazing day,” Sweeney said. “Not only did the students get demanding programs to code, they were posed the challenge to figure out how to work collaboratively and efficiently with other team members. These are essential career skills no matter what field of study our students chose to pursue.”
“Our students conducted themselves as professionals and did an excellent job,” Milonas said. “This competition is valuable to students since competition is what makes the students better at this skill. It gives them the sense, ‘I can do this! And I want to win this next year, so how do I get better?'”
