The MCJROTC from Round Rock High School and the AFJROTC from Westwood High School blew away the competition at the state and national level during the CyberPatriot competition this year.
The CyberPatriot competition brought together 5,000 teams from across the nation to compete against one another. During the competition, teams performed hands-on simulations to try to identify and fix cybersecurity vulnerabilities and promote cyber education. The exercises utilize real world scenarios. After competing in a qualifying round earlier this year, the teams moved on to the state and national rounds and were placed in competition tiers. Round Rock High School was placed in the gold tier for the MCJROTC category, Westwood was placed in the gold tier for the AFJROTC category.
After all the scores were calculated, Round Rock took home the championship title at the state level and placed 6th in the nation. Westwood placed 6th at the state level.
“Cybersecurity is important because it’s such a vital skill and an integral part of our world today,” Laasya Yatham, Round Rock High School Sophomore and MCJROTC Team Commander, said. “We constantly hear about cyber incidents in the news, and as technology grows, cyber threats grow with them. There’s a current shortage of cybersecurity professionals and this team preps us to further pursue an education/career in cybersecurity and explore the field. The competition itself offers more than any classroom has, and we’ve all gained valuable technical skills and just had a fun time with one another!”
While both teams are proud of their performances, they hope to do even better next year and qualify to compete in the platinum tier at the national level.
