media by Claire Yeater

A graphic depicts the words “Building up to Nationals” with a dotted pattern in the background to introduce the article.

Five seniors, one junior.

All practicing their offensive and defensive cybersecurity skills in room 4000 every Tuesday and Thursday during Access to get them to the national Cyberpatriot competition. 

CyberPatriot, also known as Cybersecurity Club, is off to the national competition in Washington D.C. March 15 to March 19. 

The club’s main goal is to help students participate in the Air Force Association’s National Youth Cyber Defense Competition, called CyberPatriot. 

“[The starters of the club] wanted to give others the opportunity to compete in CyberPatriot, as it hadn’t existed [in our school before],” Dobranowski said. “[Nationals] really is one of the biggest high school cybersecurity competitions out there.” 

President of the club, Philip Dobranowski ‘24, sat down with his teammates to rewind and reflect on how they got to this point. 

“This competition tasks students with securing computers and networks in a series of rounds of increasing difficulty. Essentially, we work to address any security threats that may be affecting a system and prevent future threats from happening,” Dobranowski said. 

There are four rounds leading up to the national competition, which include round one, round two, the state round and the national semifinal round. 

“In each round, you get access to a number of machines and networks to secure. For example, in one round you may get a Windows 10 machine, Ubuntu 22 machine and a network to secure,” Dobranowski said. 

Each round lasts approximately four hours. 

“The more points you accumulate within the four hours, the higher your chances [are] for moving onto the next round and placing well among other teams,” Dobranowski said. 

Dobranowski, now a senior, has been in the club since his freshman year.

Former teacher Kyler Barker sponsored the club for Dobranowski’s freshman and sophomore year. The club was then taken over by technology teacher Chris Cassic in Sept. 2022. 

“I’ve always had a love for cybersecurity and been interested in the field. Getting the opportunity to compete with friends has made my team stick around. It’s always fun to practice, research and learn about these topics,” Dobranowski said. 

CyberPatriot is made up of seniors Philip Dobranowski, Lee Guiberson, Johann Schmidt, Ty Sloan and Kaiden Potter, and junior Nakul Choudhary. This is the first time the club has ever qualified for the National Finals. 

They will compete alongside Highlands Ranch High School at Nationals, which is the only other Colorado school that qualified. 

“Out of about 5,000 teams registered this year, we were able to place in the top 12. Only 12 open division teams have the opportunity to go to the finals in D.C., and we’re one of them,” Dobranowski said. 

The club placed fourth overall in the nation during the final qualification round and earned first place in Colorado. 

“It’s always been our dream to make nationals and go to Washington D.C., so we were very proud to have finally [qualified],” Dobranowski said.

“Consistency both in this year and across the three years we’ve been competing has been the biggest factor in our success,” Dobranowski said. “We’ve always made sure to show up every round and be as best prepared as possible.” 

However, with the group being made up of mostly seniors, there was one adversity the team faced when preparing for this competition. 

“This year, it was especially challenging, as most of us were working on college applications at the same time as the season, but we kept at it,” Dobranowski said. 

This challenge was overcome by researching cybersecurity on their own time. 

“Oftentimes, an unfamiliar concept will show up mid-round, and we’d need to make sure we would be ready if it ever showed up again,” Dobranowski said. “At the end of the day, most of us do this purely to have a good time with friends and practice our cybersecurity skills. The paid trip to Washington, D.C. in March is just [the] cherry on top.”