2026 High School Hawk Hack Announcement
Registration is now closed – we thank you for your interest in this event!
We are excited to announce that this year’s competition will take place on Friday, Feb. 20, 2026, from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Monmouth University’s School of Science building in West Long Branch. Participants will be required to secure their own transportation to and from the competition.
Tentative schedule of event:
- 11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.—Welcome / Registration / Lunch
- 12:30–1 p.m.—Practice sessions
- 1–2:30 p.m.—Programming Competition
- 2:30–3 p.m.—Wrap up and Results
Below is a quick description of the competition:
- The competition consists of a set of programming problems. Teams should strive to correctly solve as many problems as possible, as quickly as possible. There will be exactly one and a half hours to work on the solutions. Each school can send up to two – three person teams to the competition.
- Each team will be assigned to two computers in a particular lab and issued appropriate login and password credentials. We have allocated two computers per team to encourage a “divide and conquer” process with different team members tackling multiple problems rather than working on one at a time.
- The Java programming language will be used to solve all programming challenges. Code must be entered in real time using university computers with the Eclipse integrated development environment. Access to textbooks and JDK documentation is permitted. Participants may not use their personal computers or mobile devices.
I look forward to meeting you at the competition!
Rolf Kamp
Specialist Professor
Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering
Tomorrow’s Tech Leaders Take the Stage at Monmouth’s 2026 High School Hawk Hack
At Monmouth’s High School Hawk Hack, over 50 students from a dozen high schools across the state participated in a coding competition, highlighting their technical, teamwork, and problem-solving skills. The Computer Science and Software Engineering Department co-host this exciting initiative highlighting the talent of young people in New Jersey and shining a light on the importance of STEM education. What makes this event unique is the interaction between current Monmouth students and the participants, many of whom have never visited a university campus. Monmouth’s IEEE/ACM Club welcomes, mentor, and proctor this competition, making a real connection with younger students interested in the STEM fields.
Over the course of 90 minutes, teams used Java to correctly solve as many coding problems as possible, as quickly as possible. IEEE/ACM Club members and faculty were impressed with this years’ contestant’s knowledge and analytical skill. The top three teams are awarded prizes in recognition of their outstanding performance. This year’s top 3 finishers are:
The IEEE/ACM students, lead by CS.BS Junior, Kiumbura N. Githinji, organized the day’s events, starting with a video presentation along with speakers including Admissions, alumni Andrew McGovern CS.BS ’25, founder of ParkShark, and CS.BS senior and Honors student, Zaccery Tarver who spoke about his ExEd opportunity. From there, the IEEE/ACM students lead competitors through the Hawk Hack procedures and instructions, demonstrating the coding problems they would face. In addition to organizing the event, the IEEE/ACM students, advised by Specialist Professor Rolf Kamp, created the challenge questions, proctored, and scored the competition. Specialist Professor Kamp remarked, “The enthusiasm exhibited by the IEEE club members energized everyone in the event. After many months of planning and preparation, this year’s Hawk Hack was very well organized and executed. All participants enjoyed the day!”
Thank you to Tsanangurayi Tongesayi, Ph.D., Associate Dean of the School of Science and Ling Zheng, Ph. D., Associate Professor and Chair of the CSSE Department, who’s opening and closing remarks made the visiting students feel welcome. The pride and commitment by CSSE students and faculty was evident in the level of engagement demonstrated by the participants and chaperones throughout this event.
High School Students Continue to Impress in 2025
Fifty students from ten high schools across New Jersey came to Monmouth’s campus to participate in the annual High School Hawk Hack this February. Students from each school comprised teams of two or three members who competed in a 90 minute coding competition. The top three teams won prizes ranging from robots to drones to STEAM gift cards.
The annual event is run by the student-led club of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers/ Association for Computing Machinery, (IEEE/ACM) which works with everything from computer science and software engineering (CSSE) to Information Technology (IT). According to Vincent Tuberion, President of IEEE/ACM, the annual Hawk Hack is the club’s biggest event.
The 2025 High School Hawk Hack winners:
First place – John P Stevens High School
Second Place – Saddle River High School
Third Place – Freehold High School
Saddle River Coding Club, the second-place team noted that this was not their first “Hackathon.” Sri Sheroy, Junior said, “We went to this one Hackathon in NYC but it was really bad, this one was much better. The premise of the game was a lot more interesting and collaborative.”
Nicole Halpin , John P. Stevens Supervisor of Career and Technical Education for grades 6-12, concluded, “I love when kids can see outside of the world of Edison, or outside of their own little community. A lot of times, high schoolers don’t know what else goes on around them, so to meet other like-minded kids is always good. For our kids, especially at a high achieving high school, to see that there are other high achieving kids out there, that they’re going to meet in the real world outside.”
IEEE/ACM Club Hosts High School Hawk Hack 2024
Friday, February 16th Monmouth’s IEEE/ACM Club hosted the annual High School Hawk Hack. In only its second year post-pandemic, this event grew significantly to include over 50 students from 12 schools across the state.
More than a dozen IEEE/ACM club members organized, instructed and proctored the competition that has students compete in teams to solve a series of programming challenges. These challenges required the students to have a working knowledge of Java programming language. The results are then tallied by HackerRank, a platform with computer science problems, used by many employers to assess the coding skills of potential candidates.
At the conclusion of the event, the members of each winning team received technology-based prizes.
The 2024 High School Hawk Hack winners:
First place – Middlesex High School
Second Place – Dwight-Englewood School
Third Place – Lakeland High School
Computer Science Professor Rolf Kamp, the IEEE/ACM club advisor, has been integral in creating this event that introduces high school students, interested in computer science, to a collegiate setting. Kamp states “It is clear the high school students, their teachers and club members thoroughly enjoyed the event. Hosting this event is an excellent opportunity to get students interested in Monmouth’s offerings.”
The IEEE/ACM club and the Computer Science & Software Engineering department hope that this event continues to grow for high school students pursuing a career in technology.
2023 HSPC hosted by Monmouth’s ACM/IEEE Club
For the first time since 2020, The MU Computer Science ACM/IEEE club hosted the Monmouth University High School Programming Competition. On February 24th, 34 students from 6 local high schools attended this event on Monmouth’s main campus.
After a lunch hosted by the Computer Science ACM/IEEE club, students were escorted to labs in Howard Hall where they were organized into teams of two or three in order to work on programming challenges. Facilitated by the ACM/IEEE club members, students were first coached through a practice session in order to become familiar with the development environment. Teams were then given 90 minutes to complete three challenges. Ranging from easy to extremely difficult, these challenges were designed by Monmouth University’s Computer Science ACM/IEEE club members.
Prizes were awarded to teams finishing in the top three positions. East Brunswick was the top finisher, and 2 different teams from Freehold High earned the 2nd and 3rd place positions.
