FERGUS – Centre Wellington District High School is back in the CyberTitan National Finals.
The Space Beans will represent the school at this week’s competition at the University of Waterloo. The last time the school made it to the national finals was a couple of years ago with the team, Morpheus.
The challenge will see the Space Beans fend off hackers trying to infiltrate their operating system in real-time. They need to find the system’s vulnerabilities, analyze how the cyber attack happened and fix it.
The teacher and the team’s coach, Eric Grieg, expects they will do well.
“The nature of this competition is that you have to really think well on the fly,” Grieg explained. “So your preparation might not even matter. I think these guys are really strong at that on-the-fly thinking.”
The team’s Oliver Farrow shared the story behind the team’s quirky name.
“I joined CyberTitan two years ago, in grade 10,” Farrow said. “We were asked on the fly what should our team name should be and I didn’t know what to say so I said ‘Blue Beans’ out of panic.”
The team later combined with the Space Marines leading to its current moniker. Farrow admitted to having a few nerves about the competition but is confident in the team’s abilities.
“Definitely nervous, kinda just because of the situation,” Farrow explained. “It’s the University of Waterloo, a big-time place, so you’re not sure exactly who you are going to meet and it’s all across Canada so there are a lot of people there. Definitely, nervous because of the challenge we will be facing, not necessarily the difficulty of it.”
Teammate Alex Shepherd says organization will be an important part of the team’s strategy.
“As long as we write down everything that we are doing and how we are all working together, we should be able to do pretty well,” Shepherd said.
CyberTitan VII runs Wednesday, May 8 and Thursday, May 9 at the University of Waterloo.