Houghton Middle School Takes First in CyberPatriot Competition


The “Space Dinosaurs” team from Houghton Middle School captured 1st place in the Michigan Middle School category of the 2021 national CyberPatriot Competition.

The team is coached by Michigan Tech faculty Yu Cai (AC) and Ruihong Zhang (CS). These students also participated in the GenCyber summer camp to receive cybersecurity training.

CyberPatriot is a National Youth Cyber Education Program created by the Air Force Association (AFA) to inspire K-12 students toward careers in cybersecurity or other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines critical to our nation’s future.

At the core of the program is the National Youth Cyber Defense Competition, the nation’s largest cyber defense competition that puts high school and middle school students in charge of securing virtual networks. CyberPatriot is the nation’s largest youth cyber education program and AFA’s flagship STEM program. In 2021, 5,254 registered teams, representing nearly 21,000 students, were led by 2,000 adult coaches from all 50 U.S. states.

For more information, visit the CyberPatriot website at www.uscyberpatriot.org.