By: Josh Kralicek - DHS Computer Science instructor
Dickinson High School students Gus Zettel and Abby Lange won first place in the Advanced Category when they competed in Valley City’s annual Tech Wars competition. Nathan Fry and Lucas Shilman took first place in the beginner category and earned both teams $250 scholarship awards.
Tech Wars is a coding competition where students use Scratch - a block-based coding language developed by MIT - to create a video game following specific criteria, including aesthetics, ease of controls, and increasing difficulty with multiple levels. It is normally an in-person event where students have the challenge to create their program in a more limited time, but for this year, students had one week to create their program.
This year’s project was to design a car-driving game with the aim of simulating real driving as much as possible by coding such features as the car’s ability to accelerate, brake, and shift gears.
The advanced category had additional criteria, including designing the game’s own sprites and making the game’s controls have a simulated steering wheel that turns when the mouse clicks on it.
Students commented on the tenacity and patience it takes to work with coding, where the biggest challenge cited by the competitors was the debugging process. The students maximized their potential by delegating to each other’s strengths. For example, Zettel was the primary programmer for their award-winning project, but all elements of design were handled by Lange.
The competition opportunity was given to the students through Science Club, advised by Ms. Elisa Kensinger. This club gives students access to both competitive and non-competitive science-related programs and is open to any student with an interest in science. Other events include Science Olympiad and community events such as planting trees for Arbor Day.
This is Dickinson’s second year in the competition. Last year, with a team composed entirely of freshmen, Gus Zettel also won 1st place in the beginner category.
The students all expressed interest in future Tech Wars and similar competitions. Most students who participated in Tech Wars are interested in competing in a similar experience this Fall in the Youth Coding Challenge.