FHS programmers were awarded the Sweepstakes plaque in the Seven Lakes UIL Computer Science Invitational "Kick-Off" recently.
          More than 90 teams were represented at the event from all over Texas with FHS having 15 participants.
          “It was exciting news when Friendswood was announced the winner of the Sweepstakes plaque by amassing more points than the other competing schools! We beat Clements, last year's 5A UIL State Champions, by 15 points,” Sponsor Annette Walter said.
          Two categories make up the competition.
          Novice category is for those students who have never competed before and Advanced is for students who have more than one year of competition experience.
          The contest is comprised of an individual written test and a team-programming contest where three programmers share one computer.
          In the Novice Individual test category, the following students placed:
          Dan Rutledge won second place and Nathan Nguyen earned sixth place.
          In the Novice team Programming competition, the following team won first place;
          Dan Rutledge, Nathan Nguyen, and Rachel Goeken.
          In the Advanced Individual test category, the following students placed:
          Noah Kessler earned sixth place with Winston Wu in tenth place.
          In the Advanced team programming competition, two teams won. In second place was the team consisting of Noah Kessler, Winston Wu, and  Kyle Wiley.
          Members in tenth place were Bobby Brown, Joe Le, and Joe Rogers.
          Other programmers that participated to the sweepstakes win were Garrison Neel, Dustin House, Ryan Ham, Nathan Hobley, Warren Ellard and Alex Wilson.