Augusta has become a major cyber hub over the years, and the Richmond County school system is teaching it in schools.

The Cyber Academy of Excellence in Richmond County brings cyber into the schools to get students interested in cyber technology at an early age.

"We especially want to expose as many kids as possible to cybersecurity careers," Dr. Marquez Hall, program specialist for Cyber Academy of Excellence, said.

150 students make up the program. On Monday, 50 lucky students got a special treat. Students worked in teams to code their own robots and put them to the test.

"We brought in a really fun project using the sphere robot and an app called Sphere EDU to allow them to style coding to accomplish several tasks," Robb Smith, a cyber professional guest at the program, said. "We had a speed challenge that was just as fast as they could get something coded out to accomplish that. As well as an accuracy challenge where they had to actually maintain parameters to achieve the goal that we'd set before them."

Smith says days like this are great because the students get hands-on experience.

"It's tangible. It's something that they can start that approach to what is coding. There's nothing that goes on pretty much in the world today that you can't tie back to some sort of coding," he said.

Justin Hairston works as a tech specialist for the school system. He says with the experience these students are getting, they'll already have a leg up when they get into the real world.

"We're getting them prepared for the workforce and our students have a bright future ahead of them," he said.

The program has only been around for a few years, but they've already had a few students go right into the cyber field after graduating high school. The program director and staff hope to continue to grow the program as cyber continues to grow in the city.

출처: WRDW