Twenty-four Whitewater High School computer programmers traveled to Marquette University for their annual programming competition on Wednesday, April 18. Students worked in groups of 2-4 for three hours to solve a series of problems of varying difficulty. Each time a team submitted a correct solution to the judges, their team was presented with a color-coded balloon to indicate they had solved a particular problem. Over 400 students from southeast and south-central Wisconsin competed in either Scratch (for newer programming students) or Java (for older, more experienced programming students).

The WHS team of Cole Kinson, Zach Brantmeier, Nick Kuzoff, and Cassi Hoxie placed first in the Java division, solving seven problems correctly, each on the first try. Each student on the winning team was awarded a 22” monitor, and the team brought home the traveling trophy to display for the next year.