A group of Minden High School (MHS) students recently beat out seven area high schools during a Cyber Discovery Camp competition.

The students placed first in the weeklong Cyber Discovery Camp, sponsored jointly by Louisiana Tech and the Cyber Innovation Center.

Camp events required the teams to assemble and program a robot, write essays on cyber-ethics issues, complete cryptography assignments and create a storyline for the activities of the camp.

Webster Parish Superintendent Butch Williams commended the students and teachers who participated in the event during Monday night’s school board meeting.

“I think the other schools, most of them had participated in this before and we were brand new at it,” said Williams. “The teachers and the kids did a great job.”

The students, under the direction of MHS English instructor Caroline Croad and math instructor Glen Guin, competed against robotics classes from Ruston, Airline, Southwood, North DeSoto, Byrd, Parkway and Benton.

“They (MHS) did just unbelievable,” said Williams. “I think somebody called a real long shot that they could go in there and win that competition because it is tough – it’s grueling, time consuming.”

Guin said the weeklong competition included conducting Boe-bot activities, writing essays on political science and ethical issues and studying the progression of technology.

“The kids would have to program the Boe-bots to do a maze or some sort of pre-determined pattern the professors had,” said Guin. “It was a competition and it was timed.”

Guin said the students watched movies throughout the week that dealt with the evolution of technology.

“The kids were instructed to pay attention to the technology and how the technology changed or upgraded,” said Guin. “The next morning, we started with a movie discussion.”

The students also participated in a weeklong treasure hunt in which the clues were encoded messages.

“You had to first learn how to decipher the code before you could find the message, then you had to figure out what the clue was,” said Guin.

The week concluded with a marble gathering robotic competition Saturday, which included a story line.

“We opted to do a movie for our story line,” said Guin. “We had been making movie clips all week long and we put it together for Saturday.”

Guin said the students were asked to study ethical issues.

“You have these fancy computers, but what are all of the ethical issues that come with it?” questioned Guin. “The students had to look at these people who are doing cyber crimes, identify theft, cryptology security with the nation’s security.”

Webster Parish Superintendent Butch Williams said Minden High School has wanted to initiate a robotics program for several years and it appears the 2009-10 school year will see the class come to fruition.

The curriculum is called STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Math — and it’s not just for the computer literate.

Students who want to participate must be strong in liberal arts, writing and public speaking.

Guin said MHS started a program last year under the direction of Ruby Musgrove called JETS – Junior Engineering and Technological Society.

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