Funded by a grant from the Department of Defense, a cybersecurity camp in Texas allows students to take part in exercises that teach them about network security, the latest cybersecurity technologies and ethical hacking.
July 15, 2025 •
Stephen Whitaker, The Eagle, Bryan, Texas
Adobe Stock
(TNS) — High school students from across the region made their way to the Innovation Center on the Blinn College campus this week to take part in a cybersecurity camp hosted by Texas A&M University Cybersecurity and Blinn College.
It is one of several camps that director Bast Schellhorn of Texas A&M puts on over the year as a way to get young students interested in cybersecurity.
“The hardest part of any camp is getting the word out there and getting students signed up and in one classroom for an entire week,“ Schellhorn said. “Being able to partner with schools like Blinn makes my life easier because I can focus on the content, the curriculum and the student experience. We’re really happy to partner with schools like Blinn.“
Part of the week is spent teaching the campers about different kinds of software and coding programs to give them a starting point for further exploration.
“Our goal is to get [campers] comfortable with some fundamental aspects of Python that they can then apply to the electronics that we have for them to program,” Schellhorn said. “Hopefully it makes it engaging and accessible for them, interests them and we hope that they go on and further their education because this interests them.”
The camp was free to all attendees thanks to a grant from the Department of Defense. All attendees received free lunch and snacks throughout the week. The Alliance for College and Career Student Success (ACCSS) provided campers with free bus rides from the Blinn Schulenberg campus to Brenham.
Campers took part in simulations and exercises to learn about network security, the latest cybersecurity technologies and practices as well as ethical hacking. Each day of the camp, which began Monday and ran through Thursday, included two sessions, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.
Blinn Computer Science Department head Bruce Gooch told The Eagle it was good to see so many kids excited about not only cybersecurity but computer science.
“The idea is they come here, learn about cybersecurity and about the industry,“ Gooch said. “If we can increase interest in cybersecurity in rural Texas we can bring some of these high-paying jobs back to places where we normally educate these kids. What’s also cool is we teach them how to use and write computer code in Python to control other electronics, sensors or actuators and then they get to take the computers home that they built.“
ACCSS is a partnership between Blinn and six school districts within the Blinn College District that works to provide more dual credit opportunities and career pathways for students in the region.
Raymond Adams, an incoming sophomore at Weimar High School, is one of those students taking part in the camp. On Thursday, Adams was working at his computer on coding a process that he could use a key fob to light up LED lights and to place a message on a display screen.
“This camp has taught me to work with your hands more than just think about it. It’s more hands-on and it gets you to learn more activities and know what you can do in the future,“ Adams said. “It has been interesting learning programming and learning how to put tiny circuits together and learning how to put tiny circuits together and how big all those little things can become and the variety of things they can do.”
If any of the campers got stuck on a problem, camp leaders from A&M and assistants from Blinn College walked around ready to help. Among those moving through the room was Bryn Carmichael, who became a teaching assistant this year after attending as a camper last year.
Carmichael is a dual-credit student at Blinn and also attends IL Texas’s Aggieland High School in College Station. Getting to experience the camp as a TA was new for Carmichael who is considering a future using cybersecurity in the medical field.
“It’s been interesting to see what these kids will think of and it’s way different from what we did last year,” he said. “It’s challenging and it’s fun. My favorite thing from when I was a camper was messing with all the different seniors and figuring out how to mesh different codes together. As a TA, my favorite thing is seeing all of their reactions to all the different things. Whether it’s super excited or super confused, they are just like ‘Oh my goodness.’”
Thursday afternoon’s session included a session taught by Schellhorn on cryptology. Each camper had a Pringles can and were given strips of letters that connected by line to a cypher. The campers had to rotate the strips of letters around until each color line matched up and then they could figure out what the message was.
The Pringles can was a stand-in for the rolls of a German enigma machine from World War II and it taught the campers how the Allied cryptographers — the cybersecurity experts of their day — figured out how to decipher the messages.
“This camp is my favorite part of my job,“ Schellhorn said. “It’s certainly the most rewarding thing I do, being able to give these kids this experience and hopefully help them find something interesting that they continue to learn about and build upon.”
The camp closes Friday with a ceremony where students will be able to show their parents what they have been working on this week. The students also will receive prizes from the camp and also get to take home the computers they had been using during the week to keep working on their coding skills.
Adams hopes to keep building on what he learned at the camp this week. He still has time to figure out where he plans to go to college, but he’s got a step up on other students his age thanks to his week at Cybersecurity Camp.
“Cybersecurity is one of the things I’ll think about for a college [major]“ Adams said. “Everyone at this camp is nice and helpful. They let you try by yourself first and then if you need it, they will help you fix it.”
