JFK Middle School's hackathon team

Bethpage High School hosted the KidOYO Code Conquest Junior Division Hackathon on Friday, March 31, 2023. Eleven teams from across Long Island participated in the coding event which was held in the high school gymnasium. This included Bethpage’s own team from John F. Kennedy Middle School, “The Bethpage Blockers.”

Each hackathon team consisted of eight students in Grades 7-8. They each had their own table in the gymnasium where they stationed their laptops and competed in programming challenges against the other participating schools. The students were all given a digital map and their goal was to complete coding challenges better than their competitors to gain territories. When a team would take over a territory, that section of the map would change to that team’s specific color.

The teams were judged virtually, and members of Bethpage High School TV facilitated a livestream of the entire event which included interviews and more. At the conclusion of the event, the winning hackathon team was crowned, along with the winners of the best team banner, best team logo, and best capital defense project.