PRIJEDOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS FINISH FOURTH AT YOUNG PROGRAMMERS' COMPETITION IN VIENNA

PRIJEDOR, JANUARY 15 /SRNA/ - Students of the Prijedor Electrical Engineering School, Aleksej Đukić and Andrej Stanić, won fourth place among 22 teams at a programming competition in Vienna, which brought together secondary school students from 32 countries, Branko Šalabalija, a teacher of vocational subjects at the school, told SRNA today.

Šalabalija said that the students' impressions from the "Midnight Hackathon" were positive, and that participating in the competition motivated them to continue programming and developing projects, as well as to form new international connections. "They showed that students from Prijedor can also achieve notable results at international competitions," Šalabalija said. He noted that the third member of the Prijedor team was their peer Mathias from France, and that, aside from the competition itself, one of the most memorable experiences was sleeping in sleeping bags in the very hall where the hackathon was held, together with more than a hundred young programmers. "The task was for teams to develop two projects within 36 hours. One of our team's projects involved hand-movement tracking in a video game designed by the students themselves, which earned them additional points," Šalabalija explained. Aleksej Đukić and Andrej Stanić are second-year students in the Information Technology Technician program, and they learned about the hackathon through social media. One of the requirements for receiving an invitation to the competition was that students had completed at least 50 hours of work on their own projects. The "Midnight Hackathon" took place in Vienna from January 5th to 8th, organized by the international Hack Club. The theme required students, divided into teams of up to three members, to work on projects and receive clues in the form of cards in order to solve a mysterious murder from a video game.