“The biggest goal for the honor society is longevity. It was possible that CSHS could have not been run this year due to COVID and other extenuating circumstances, such as the main sponsor leaving the school. However, Mr. Estes was able to step in this year as sponsor and keep the program afloat,” senior Carlo Mehegan said.
As president of the HHS Computer Science Honor Society, Mehegan has taken the lead this year on expanding the club’s outreach and influence on the school, even if they’ve had to do so virtually.
“Being virtual has made it difficult to reach out to students and get people involved with the honor society. To combat this, we created an Instagram and Discord to help disseminate information and spread the word about CSHS. While being virtual has had challenges, there are also a few benefits. Because everyone is online, it is much easier to host and run an event. There’s no need to travel or find a place to run the event; participants just need to log in,” Mehegan said.
So far this year, the honor society’s biggest endeavor has been the game jam.
“We hosted a game jam for CSHS members, which is a competition where students are given a theme and a set of rules, and must code a video game using those rules. At this game jam, students had 48 hours to create a game using the p5.js framework. The theme was ‘domino effect.’ It was exciting to work with the teams of students competing and see what they created over the 48 hours,” Mehegan said.
Entering the fourth quarter, Mehegan says the club still has big plans for outreach within the school system and the larger community.
“This semester, we hosted a second game jam. The first was open to CSHS members, and the second was open to all HHS students and high school students from Rockingham County,” Mehegan said. “We are also planning an Hour of Code event for middle schoolers who are looking to learn the basics of code. We would use a block based coding language that’s simple to understand and create challenges that teach students new coding skills.”
After noticing that many AP students were seeking help preparing for upcoming tests, the CSHS leadership team began working towards a study space and meeting time for computer science students at HHS to work with each other on coding projects or AP test prep.
“We are looking for interest in computer science after-school study hall block. During this time, students could get help with code for their classes, find someone to help explain a topic, or even take practice AP computer science tests,” Mehegan said.
As the year wraps up, Mehegan hopes that his efforts as president will help inspire next year’s leadership team to engage the community once meetings can again be held in-person.
“It is important to us that CSHS stays afloat next year too, and for many years into the future as well. Many of our current goals, such as outreach and awareness, are tools in growing CSHS for future years. As we near the end of this school year, the other officers and I are looking towards how we can pass the club on to the next year’s officers and members after we graduate,” Mehegan said.