Chapter Announces Student Hackathon Event

The chapter is excited to announce its inaugural Escape the Planet hackathon event. Developed in conjunction with the AFCEA Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC) Student Chapter, AFCEA International, representatives from military academies and Fairfax County Public School faculty and high school students, Escape the Planet is a series of basic coding challenges built around a space exploration mission storyline. The challenge engages middle school students to assist the fictional Belvoir AFCEA Space Alliance (BASA) on their mission of discovery to Planet X to bring back recently detected evidence of "proof-of-life."

This pilot effort is scheduled for December 16 - 17 and will support ongoing coding curriculum being taught at each of the competing schools with the hope of seeding future interest and participation in Science Technology Engineering Arts & Math (STEAM) events. As part of the ongoing mission of the chapter, grants are being offered to each of the competing schools to help further their STEAM curriculums.

Upon receipt of their BASA support mission, students from Belvoir Upper School and Walt Whitman Middle School will form Mission Specialist teams. Each Mission Specialist team will have a Ground Support Team comprised of AFCEA NVCC students, AFCEA Emerging Leaders, U.S. Coast Guard Academy cadets and members of high school cyber clubs.