The U of A's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science hosted its annual high school programming contest on March 8, drawing students from across the state to compete in a coding challenge.

The contest featured 22 teams from nine schools, with students solving real-world programming problems under strict time constraints. Kevin Jin, an associate professor and one of the event's lead organizers, said the goal for students is to enhance their coding skills, encourage teamwork and build confidence in problem-solving.

"For the university, it serves as an opportunity to inspire future computer scientists and engineers, strengthen community engagement and showcase our commitment to STEM education," he said.

The first-place team, "You Lost the Game," was comprised of Thomas Coolidge and Hudson Ledbetter from Conway High School. Coolidge expressed his enthusiasm for the event.

"It was definitely a lot of fun," Coolidge said. "My favorite part was probably the little comment thing that you could add to the questions to ask the judges. That felt really effective, and we were able to ask a good couple of questions and get responses within two to three minutes, so I really appreciated that."

Ledbetter noted that the most challenging aspect of the contest was debugging code without explicit feedback on expected output. "It will just tell you if you got something wrong," he said. "You have to go back to your code and figure out what that error was."

Remington Griffith, a teacher at Conway High School and the team's coach, praised the students for their hard work and dedication. "I'm super proud of them. I am very, very pumped," Griffith said. "Something that we always say is it is a great day to be a Wampus Cat, and these guys have made it an absolutely great day to be a Wampus Cat."

Griffith emphasized the importance of coding education and encouraged more students to try programming.

"I think every kid should at least give coding a shot once. It is not for everybody, but if you fall in love with this, it is something that can take you a long way," he said.

The competition awarded second place to the team "Super Skibidi Seniors," featuring Frank Gomez-Montalvo, Daniel Paxton and Logan Roberts from the Don Tyson School of Innovation. The third-place team, "… glup," consisted of Vincent Baxley, Kevin Sun and Arissa Cholthitchanta from Fayetteville High School. The Most Creative award went to "Team Sparta," composed of Ginther Cameron, Jo Unnam and Jhon Perez-Rodriguez from Bentonville West High School.

Jin described the event as a "resounding success," with enthusiastic participation from students and strong support from faculty, Ph.D. student judges and sponsors. Dean Kim Needy attended the awards ceremony, further highlighting the university's commitment to STEM education.

"We are already looking forward to next year's contest and plan to continue expanding participation and enhancing the competition experience," Jin said. "While the exact date has not been set for spring 2026, we aim to build on this year's success and further engage high school students in STEM and competitive programming."