Waukee High School Hyperstream students earned two first place trophies for their Community Service Project and Gaming at the IT Olympics.
The IT Olympics features high school students showcasing their IT talents and knowledge in competitions and presentations. Teams from across the state compete in three different venues: cyber defense, game design and robotics. The IT Olympics was a two-day event at Iowa State’s Hilton Coliseum Friday, April 27 and Saturday, April 28.
Hyperstream members have been working with Maple Grove’s Robotics Group. Students attended meetings as mentors, created a website for the group, shared their award-winning robot from the FIRST Tech Challenge, hosted robotics challenges for the students and was able to raise $250 to help purchase software for the elementary Robotics Group. This community service project was lead by Brennan Antone and will be continuing at Maple Grove.
The Gaming Team which included Brennan Antone, Josh Dallman, Jordan Dean and Zach Karamanlis, took first place overall for the weekend. The Gaming Team created a STEM game for middle school-age students. The STEM game included a quick-start guide and online documentation. The team also competed in two real-time challenges, a round-robin tournament and a brainteaser competition. The team was coached by Aaron Wignall from John Deere and had a little help from Programming I class here at Waukee.
The Cyber Defense Team, made up of Nile Engelhardt, Ian Frank, Nick Baas, Alex Preston, and Brook Pieretti, took an impressive ninth place against 23 very experienced teams. These students were able to keep network services running throughout the event, block a few hacks and made smart choices to maintain their network over the course of the two day competition. The team was coached by Matt Poush and Ryan Bergman, Hyperstream Ambassadors from John Deere. Waukee Hyperstream students meet once a week to work on their skills and learn new techniques. Many of the competing schools offer networking and security and a year-long class.
John Deere and the Technology Association of Iowa sponsor the Hyperstream student organization. This partnership has enabled students to learn anything from marketing to computer programming. Hyperstream gives students hands-on experience in advanced areas of technology in a myriad of career fields.
