‘Codebusting’ West Orange Teens Make School History At State Competition

WEST ORANGE, NJ — The following news release comes courtesy of the West Orange Public School District. Find out how to post announcements or events to your local Patch site.

Three West Orange High School students made school history by placing third in the “Codebusters” competition, part of the State Regional Science Olympiad held Jan. 13 at Union County College.

A team of three ninth-grade students (Sarah Nicolaescu, Anya Hughes, Isabela Salinas-Cavagnaro) earned third place in the Codebusters event at the Regional Science Olympiad tournament, competing against high school teams from across NJ. This finish is the highest placement ever achieved by West Orange High School at a regional Science Olympiad competition.

Since 1993, the New Jersey Science Olympiad has been held through the Science Olympiad, an international nonprofit organization “devoted to improving the quality of science education, increasing student interest in science and providing recognition for outstanding achievement in science education by both students and teachers.” This occurs through classroom activities, research, workshops, and competitions. The interscholastic competitions are extremely rigorous and comprised of individual and team events that require months of preparation.

The competition follows the formats of board games, TV shows, and athletic games and genres like biology, earth science, chemistry, physics, computers and technology. Events require knowledge of science facts, concepts, processes, skills and science applications. Scientific and mathematical demonstrations also take place throughout the day in addition to career counseling sessions. The New Jersey Science Olympiad events are closely aligned with Next Generation Science Standards and include strong components for problem solving, critical thinking and use of technology.

Codebusters is a challenging Science Olympiad event centered on cryptography, the science of encoding and decoding messages. In this event, teams of up to three students analyze and decrypt encoded messages using both historical and modern ciphers. During the 50-minute competition, participants must decrypt as many ciphers as possible, balancing speed and accuracy while applying logic, pattern recognition, and mathematical reasoning. Success in Codebusters depends heavily on teamwork, as students work together to maximize points under strict time constraints.

A cipher is crytographic algorithm - a set up step-by-step instructions - used to transform readable information (plaintext) into an unreadable, scrambled format (ciphertext) to ensure secure communication. It uses a secret key for encryption and decryption, commonly relying on substitution (replacing characters) or transposition (rearranging characters) methods.

Key Aspects of Codebusters (information provided by Google):

• Cipher Types: The event covers historical and modern, including Atbash, Caesar, Aristocrat, Vigenère, Baconian, Dancing Men, and Pig Pen ciphers.
• Competition Structure: Teams receive a test packet (often, but not always, stapled) and can work in any order to decode messages or encode them.
• Scoring & Bonuses: High score wins, with points awarded per correctly decoded letter. Bonuses are given for fully correct, completed ciphers and sometimes for solving a specific, timed question quickly.
• Allowed Materials: Teams are typically allowed to bring writing utensils and up to three non-graphing, non-programmable, 4-5 function calculators.
• Strategy: The test is usually designed to be too long to finish, requiring teams to strategically choose which ciphers to solve.

Codebusters tests skills in pattern recognition, logical reasoning, and, at higher levels, mathematical applications, such as using modular arithmetic for breaking codes.

The team’s strong performance was the result of months of preparation and careful collaboration. Prior to the competition, the students worked closely together, dividing responsibility for the event’s ten possible cipher types so that each member could develop specialized expertise. They met regularly, including weekends, and simulated the testing environment by working under timed conditions.

Each team member focused on mastering specific cipher types. Sarah specialized in Aristocrats, Cryptarithms, Fractionated Morse, and the 5x5 Checkerboard. Anya focused on Aristocrats, Patristocrats, Baconian, and Porta ciphers. Isabela concentrated on Complete Columnar, Nihilist, and Xenocrypt ciphers. This “divide and conquer” strategy allowed the team to cover a wide range of problems efficiently during the competition.

Despite competing against older and more experienced high school students, the freshman team rose to the challenge. Their strong analytical skills, collaboration, and calm problem-solving under pressure earned them a spot on the podium—an extraordinary accomplishment at the regional level.

Placing third in Codebusters not only highlights the team’s talent and dedication but also represents a major milestone for West Orange’s academic programs, like this one advised by science teachers Mrs. Schultz and Mr. Daiek. Their success demonstrates that determination, preparation, and teamwork can lead to exceptional results, regardless of grade level.

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