Left to right: Gowanda High students Tyler Dakin, Caleb Merrill and Isaiah Westerheide with Dr. Michael Scialdone, director of the 16th annual High School Computing Competition, during the awards presentation at The State University of New York at Fredonia.

Gowanda High School students enrolled in Jamestown Community College computer programming classes participated in the 16th annual High School Computing Competition held May 20, on the campus of The State University of New York at Fredonia and returned victorious.

The day consisted of five different competitions that test students’ computer knowledge and programming skills. There were Excel spreadsheet, HTML programming and high-level language programming competitions as well as an internet scavenger hunt and a quiz bowl.

The Gowanda team of Tyler Dakin, Caleb Merrill and Isaiah Westerheide won first place in the high-level language programming contest, finishing ahead of three teams from Eden and Hutch Tech. The GHS students were able to correctly plan, write and execute computer programs to solve four of the six competition questions in 90 minutes. This is the seventh time in the past eight years that Gowanda students have won this contest.

During the Internet scavenger hunt, the approximately 35 student participants had to use internet resources to answer questions about general computer topics as quickly as possible. GHS students received individual prizes for being the first to answer various questions during this competition. Gowanda also placed third in the quiz bowl portion of the competition.