A collection of high school students from Bear River, Logan, and Sky View attending Bridgerland Applied Technology College recently took first place in the state of Utah in a cyber security competition. In fact, their score was so high it was the tenth highest in the nation for their division, which included 491 teams.
Team Vanguard, comprised of Jared Manning and Curtis Morgan from Bear River High School, Hayden Nielsen from Logan High School, and Jackson Milne from Sky View High School, was coached by Gordon Anderson and Bonnie Campbell, instructors at BATC. The team was also mentored by Michael Fuller, a security specialist at UK2 Group located in Providence.
The competition, called CyberPatriot, is a national youth cyber defense competition established by the Air Force Association. The competition challenges teams of students across the United States and Canada to find and resolve cyber security vulnerabilities in simulated environments.
Because Team Vanguard earned first place in Utah in the Gold Tier, they will move on to a regional round. The top teams from the regional online rounds win an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, DC for the live national finals competition where students can compete for national recognition and scholarships.
The CyberPatriot field is divided into three divisions – the Open Division for high school teams (public, private and home schooled), the Middle School Division, and the All Service Division for JROTC, Civil Air Patrol, and Naval Sea Cadet teams.
The Information Technology Department at BATC is planning to hold seminars this summer to help local high schools and middle schools develop their own CyberPatriot teams. For more information on CyberPatriot coaches seminars, contact Trent Stokes, Information Technology Department Head at BATC, at [email protected]. Additional information is also available at <a href=”http://www.uscyberpatriot.org” target=”_blank”>uscyberpatriot.org</a>.