On April 24, more than 1,400 high school students around the world put their software skills to the test at Lockheed Martin’s annual Code Quest competition.
During Code Quest, teams of two to three students took on a series of software engineering challenges, all created by Lockheed Martin software developers to mirror real-world engineering problems.
“My students and I enjoyed Code Quest. The best part about being virtual was that although I was only an observer, I could hear great conversations, witness correct use of vocabulary, and enjoy seeing their teamwork,” said Diane Walsh, Participant Coach.
Teams coded in JAVA, Python, VB.net, C#, and/or C++ to complete challenges. While previous years’ events have been in person on Lockheed Martin sites, this was the first one to be conducted virtually.
“While running this over Zoom was a challenge, it was also a lot of fun and helped us reach out to students in more countries and cities than ever before,” said Whitney Holland, Lockheed Martin’s Code Quest lead. “It was a lot of fun watching students join over Zoom and work together to solve some pretty tough problem sets. Congratulations to all of our winners and many, many thanks to our many volunteer coaches, site leads and, of course, all of our participants.”
Now in its 9th year, Code Quest has grown substantially from initial beginnings in Fort Worth, Texas. In fact, many past Code Quest competitors have gone on to become Lockheed Martin employees and interns.
“Code Quest was extremely fun and challenging, and it helped me to bond with a team while putting my skills to the test,” said Spencer Paciello, a former Code Quest competitor who went on to become a Lockheed Martin intern and now a full-time employee. “My experience as an intern helped me grow my programming knowledge while contributing meaningful things to the company. I was able to learn some of the latest web technologies, serverless development, and also machine learning that I now leverage in my current role a full-time developer for Lockheed Martin Space.”
Code Quest 2021: By the Numbers
- 1,468 Student Participants
- 15 Combined Sites Hosted
- 568 Student Participant Teams
- 85 Winning Teams
- Over 500 volunteers