News

Dakota College at Bottineau hosts Tech Wars

By Scott Wagar

10/28/2014

Dakota College at Bottineau, in association with Turtle Mountain Community College, hosted Tech Wars on Oct. 22 which gave nine high school teams from the area the opportunity to learn about information technology and the chance to compete against each other to be named the top tech team in this region.

“We do the event to get kids interested in technology,” said Colette Schimetz, information technology instructor at Dakota College at Bottineau and co-coordinator of DCB’s Tech Wars with Diane Keller.

“What we do in the competition is instruct the students in the morning in information technology and then hold a competition in the afternoon where the kids have to find computer parts we hide on campus, take the items and rebuild a computer, get the computer up and running and then build a webpage.

“We also test the students and offer a class on electronic-waste because e-waste is such a big issue now in what to do with all the electronic devices that are now obsolete,” Schimetz added.

When it comes to the instruction, the students are taught basic HTML or raw code which teaches the students how to build a webpage. The young scholars are also taught GPS or Global Positioning System and hardware and software instruction so students know how to reconstruct a computer once they find the parts through the GPS device.

The high school teams that participated came from Bottineau, Cavalier, Dunseith, Fessenden/Bowden, Langdon, Rugby, Sawyer and TGU.

Each team was made up of four students, which had to include one female student.

“There is traditional a low ratio of women in information technology,” Schimetz said. “Because of this, one of the four teammates has to be a girl because we want to get girls interested in this field.”

Sawyer High School placed first in the Tech Wars with 350 points, Langdon High School placed second with 300 points and Bottineau earned third place with 296 points.

Each student from Sawyer won computer tablets for first place, while Langdon’s students received headphones and Bottineau’s students were given a 32 GB flash drive.

Sawyer’s team included CJ Steel, Isaiah Bender, Krista Lagge and Valerie Olson. Langdon’s team included Dawson Schefter, Chase Rohde, Austin Hart and Allison Brinegar and Bottineau’s team included Cody Allard, Jacie Ceglowski, Alex Scofield and Zachary Lafrombois.    

Schimetz stated that she was pleased with the event.
“The competition participants had a fun, productive, learning experience. It provided them the opportunity to see and experience technology in ways they may not have known about previously,” Schimetz said. “In addition, the DCB students who helped organize and facilitate the event gained valuable project planning and leadership experience.

“Diane and I were thrilled to see the enthusiasm and competitive spirit displayed by all participants,” Schimetz continued to state.

“We are hoping to work closely with more high schools to further expand the participation in our annual event.”