Teams to advance in coding competition

LITTLE ROCK — Gov. Asa Hutchinson and the Arkansas Department of Education on Friday announced the 17 teams that will advance to the fifth annual All-State Cod- ing Competition on May 1.

The All-Region Coding Competition was a digital event held Feb. 26.

More than 100 teams participated. They were scored by the Arkanas Department of Education’s Office of Computer Science using a common rubric and process.

That process determined the top 16 teams to invite to the state-level event. The school that produced the first-place team at the state competition in 2020, the Don Tyson School of Innovation in Springdale, received an automatic invitation to send a team to the state competition.

“Covid changed almost everything, including this year’s regional coding competition, which was held virtually for the first time,” Hutchinson said. “Regardless, competing off-site did not dampen the enthusiasm of the more than 100 teams that participated.”

The following teams have been selected to advance to the All-State Coding Competition:

• De’Lion Summerville, Joshua LeVar and Colin Phillips from Arkadelphia High School in Arkadelphia.

• Tristan Goodell, Trey Clark and Joshua Stallings from the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts in Hot Springs.

• Caleb Jones, Anish Leekkala and Katherine Pearce from Bentonville High School in Bentonville.

• Ryder Johnson, Karina Batra, and Shorna Alam from Bentonville West High School in Centeron.

• Braden Pierce from Bryant High School in Bryant.

• Luke Haskins, Zachary Kelly and Christopher Sayers from Cabot High School in Cabot.

• Andrew Baker, Aaron Tran and Jacob Collier-Tenison from Central High School in Little Rock.

• Alex Prosser, David Saavedra and Titus Johnson from Clinton High School in Clinton.

• Ethan Moss, Brian Russell and Matthew Ablondi from Conway High School in Conway.

• Lucas Kellar, Luke Lyons and Drake Mayes from Tyson School of Innovation in Springdale.

• Elijah Keen, Spencer Knight and Sergio Markin from eStem High School in Little Rock.

• Julian Sanker, Owen Bell and Ganer Whitmire from Haas Hall Academy in Fayetteville.

• Toby Reid, Clayton Boothe and Hana Lovett from Maumelle High School in Maumelle.

• Grant Palasak, Keidan Smith and Matthew Couts from Rogers High School in Rogers.

• Joshua Willard, Aldan Garner and David Daniel from New Technology High School in Rogers.

• Reid Dutton, Tony Chen and Jessie Beatty from Star City High School in Star City.

• Logan Heinzelman, Evan Watson and Connor Stephens from Stuttgart High School in Stuttgart.

Each member of the firstplace team at the state competition will receive a $2,000 award that will be deposited into a 529 College Savings Plan.

Each member of the second-place team will receive a $1,000 award deposited into a 529 College Savings Plan, with each member of the third-place team receiving a $500 award deposited into a 529 College Savings Plan.

In addition, the schools that register/sponsor the teams placing first, second and third will receive $10,000, $6,000 and $4,000, respectively, to support their computer science programs.

The prizes and competition expenses are provided by a grant from Verizon to ARCodeKids.