CB Tech students shine in state coding contest

MOSES LAKE — It may have been spring break last week, but a group of kids from the Columbia Basin Technical Skills Center spent part of their break competing against the best high school coders in the state.

And winning.

“We got second place, and now we’re going to nationals in Baltimore,” said Shay Cardona, a sophomore at Moses Lake High School.

Cardona, who shared that second-place statewide finish with teammate Brayan Lopez, was among the 14 students from CB Tech to spend four days in Bellevue showing off their coding skills at the Future Business Leaders of America State Conference.

Both Cardona and Lopez are showing that the Columbia Basin is becoming something of a video game coding powerhouse.

“We’ve been going for the last four years,” said Terri Pixlee, the video game programming instructor at CB Tech. “And for three of those years, we’ve gone to nationals.”

This year’s competition involved creating a “sandbox,” an open-ended simulation.

“What they wanted was a year in the life of an FBLA student,” said Lopez, a senior at Othello High School. “So we put in the community service, created characters in the game that needed your help.”

“It took hundreds of hours,” he added.

According to Pixlee, the students write the computer code for the game using the widely-used coding languages C++ or C#. They also have to create their own sound and music to go along with the game.

FBLA competition rules state the games had to run on a PC using at least Windows 7, be virus- and malware-free, be controlled solely by keyboard commands, and be rated for anyone 10 or older.

“They code from scratch knowing they can use this in many different fields,” Pixlee said. “It’s very difficult to be creative.”

Lopez and Cardona said they turned their game in weeks in advance so the judges can play and judge it, and then make a small presentation on their game.

Along with fellow programmers and fourth-place winners Juan Torres and Owen Welch — both Moses Lake High School students — Lopez and Cardona will be headed to the FBLA national competition in Baltimore from June 26 to July 2.

“We’re going to be using the same game,” Lopez said. “We’ll make some improvements, and some more to it.”

Lopez wants to either create video games or program unmanned aerial vehicles, while Cardona said she wants to be veterinarian.

“I know, this is a side hobby,” she said.

Pixlee said one reason the CB Tech kids do so well is that even though they are competing against each other, they also work together.

“We play as a team and work together, help each other. This prepares them for the world of work,” she said.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com.