Ripon High took third place in the high school division of the H2O Hackathon coding competition held last Saturday at the San Joaquin County Office of Education.

The seventh annual event consisted of 52 teams made up of over 200 high school and college students.

SJCOE describes the H2O Hackathon as “a community-supported event that taps into the technological, creative, problem-solving, and presentation skills of local students to find solutions for the state’s water issues impacting San Joaquin County.”

In coding competition, RHS students – the foursome known as ‘Splash Bros’ – were tasked to create an app to dispatch rapid rescue and emergency response services within a flooded community.

For their efforts, they were awarded $1,000 as their third-place prize.

Stockton Early College Academy (Stockton Unified) had two teams, finishing in first and second place, respectively.

The ‘Team Marmot’ team won top prize ($2,000) while ‘Hydro Heuristics’ was runner up, taking home $1,500.

In the college division, University of the Pacific’s ‘Mojo’ took first place ($2,000), with Team New Wave (Code Stack Academy) and ‘Coconut Mall’ (UOP) taking a respective second and third.

In the Multimedia competition, the Aqua Ducks (Delta College) took first place ($2,000) – the team also received the Cal Water Spigot Award ($5,000).

Pacific Solar Car (UOP) and Skibidi Squad (Stockton Early College Academy) took second and third, respectively.

This year’s theme was Hack the Flood.

“Students who took part in the H2O Hackathon learned computer coding, collaboration, critical thinking, problem solving, and other skills that will help them for the jobs of today and tomorrow,” said SJCOE’s Superintendent of School Troy Brown in a press release.

He added: “Not only are students preparing themselves for their own futures, but they are also focusing their passion and innovation on their community.”