The NeverLAN CTF started as an idea I had after returning from a school trip to SAINTCON back in 2014. On the 4 hour trip back from the conference one car full of students wished they could have started learning about CS at an earlier point in their life. These students were inspired by the welcoming and friendly community of SAINTCON to give back to their community. It was from this inspiration that an idea to create a CTF for middle school students was conceived.
The original idea was to create an event that was as welcoming to beginners as the community of SAINTCON is, and would show students the exciting side of the industry while also showing them how they could be safe online. This idea faded away after the students returned to school and continued their studies. It wasn't until their senior year when the students were tasked with doing a project that would need to be educational, align with their career goals, and must give back to the community. This task lead the students to take what was once an idea and turn it into a reality.
At Twin Falls High School there was a room known as NeverLAN, although it was more commonly known as the hackerspace. This room was were the students were allowed to practice their programming skills and it was also the inspiration to the name of the event.
Originally there were five students who started the NeverLAN CTF: Quintin Slagowski, who helped with designing some of the original server and MySQL based challenges. Megan Jensen, who Helped primarily with the design of the site and promoting the event on social media. Tanner Purves, who helped design challenges and acted as the project's lead. Preston Pace, who was the primary designer of the website, and helped with the creation of challenges. and Zane Durkin, who helped with the design of challenges and the website server.
It was only with the amazing mentorship of Viking, better known as Dan Daggett, that this event was possible. Dan acted as the mentor for the group of students, and helped them through every step of the CTF development process. He lead the design of the event server, a task that would not probable for the students.
The first year of the event was a hit. The event was promoted primarily to a local middle school and to a few close friends on twitter. At the middle school the students quickly fell in love with the event. The Teacher of the class insisted that we host the event again next year, and that she has never seen a class more engaged in learning.
After the first year of the event, Quintin and Megan continued on career paths that did not include the NeverLAN CTF event. But the three original creators and their mentor carried on with the event.
Checkout the Websites
NeverLANCTF.org
NeverLANCTF.com
Or checkout some of the CTF Challenges
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