(This Form is to be read and filled out by the students. Parents may also help the students for the payment and scheduling plan.)

Introduction

The main goal of TitanTurtles Club is to study cybersecurity and organize middle school and high school teams to participate in US CyberPatriot competition. Along the way, TitanTurtles Club will also give the opportunity for the students to gain teamwork spirits, sportsmanship, leadership traits and social responsibilities.

CyberPatriot is a nationwide youth cybersecurity competition program managed by the Air Force & Space Association. Every year, over five thousand middle school and high school teams across the country compete in different levels of CyberPatriot competitions. Students will benefit from participating in the CyberPatriot program.  The competition and learning journey will help build a well rounded understanding of computer systems and cybersecurity. Students of top teams are capable of earning professional certificates and working professionally in the cybersecurity department of a company.

Every year, the CyberPatriot competition season starts in April when registration is open (Competition starts in October) and ends in March of the next year when the National Final is held in Maryland.

TitanTurtles Club Teams won

2023-2024 

-- Rank #4 in CyberPatriot National Final, 1st, 2nd and 3rd Place Oregon Champion

-- Rank #4 in CP Discord Open

-- Rank #1 GeorgeFox University HS Programming Contest

-- Rank #15 picoCTF US HS Division

2022-2023 

-- Rank #18 CyberPatriot Nationwide, 1st, 2nd and 3rd Place Oregon Champion

2021-2022 

-- Rank #1 CyberPatriot Oregon Champion

To accompany with CyberPatriot schedule, TitanTurtles Club's plan are designed as follow:

* Off season (April - August):

      -- recruiting season

      -- CTF and other competitions

      -- offseason preparation

      -- CyberCamps (2 weeks, Standard Camp July 29 - Aug. 2, Advanced Camp Aug. 5 - Aug. 9)

      -- team registration

      -- social works

* Competition season (September - January (March if advanced to national)):

      -- competition preparation

      -- competition rounds (roughly 1 round each month from October to January)

The Club is managed by Coach Xinle Yang, Coach Pei Zhang and professional cybersecurity mentor Sean. Motivated and capable students will have exposure and engagement in building out next generation student pipeline and delivering community presentations. Students with proven leadership work will earn leadership titles and duties.

We encourage parents to be mentors so that the students can have a better learning result. Parents will be able to learn and grow with students.

The competition website is https://www.uscyberpatriot.org/. The main subjects of the competition are Windows OS, Linux OS and Cisco networking. Students can choose 1 or 2 focus subjects during the competition season. There are also other competition subjects in later stages of the competition. For Windows and Linux, the format is OS virtual machines on VMware. For Cisco networking, the format is Packet Tracer lab.

The Core Values of the Club:

* Respect for individual

* Learn as a sponge

* Strive for excellence

* Team First: we win and lose as a team

* Fun: we enjoy and celebrate what we do

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Club Application

There will be an open house on April 21st, 2024 at Bethany Library Annex. Details are below:

Time: 1:30pm – 3:00pm PDT, Sunday April 21st, 2024

* In-person: (preferred)

      Bethany Library Annex (Next door to Subway)

      4888 NW Bethany Blvd Suite K-2, Portland, Oregon 97124

* Zoom: 875 2448 8672 Passcode: turtles

Like all serious sports or academic competitions, CyberPatriot requires commitment from the students. The application requirements are as follow:

* Grades: new students grade 6 -12 are preferred

* Required Donation: $350 per year (To cover 4 rounds of tournaments cost (registration, food, places) and cost of learning materials. If advance to National Final Competition Tournament, there will be at least $350 additional cost.)

* New students are expected to participate in both Standard and Advanced Camps hosted between July 29 to August 2. Returning students are expected to participate in Advanced Camp from August 5 to August 9. It will be really hard for students to catch up if students did not participate in the camps. Details of the camp can be found here: https://titanturtles.org/cybercamp.html.

* No previous background needed. We will cover everything you need to know. Students also need to spend time to learn. Winners win because they did the hard work.

* Self-driven to learn new things

* Self-motivated to take new challenges

* Desire to strive for excellence

* Go through interview process with coaches

* Can commute to Bethany area in Portland, Oregon

* Will not release any learning materials to other CyberPatriot teams or to anyone outside the team (It is against CyberPatriot rule to release any competition materials to other CyberPatriot teams).

* What we actually do?

    - Deep dive into computer systems

    - Windows 10, Windows server 2019

    - Linux: Ubuntu, Debian

    - Cisco Networking

    - Find and Fix Vulnerabilities

* When students decide to join the Club and team, we expect the students to be fully committed.

* Need to sign extensive, detailed team agreement.

* Team meetings: (from March to March of next year. We will skip some major holiday weeks and occasional vacations.)

    - Wednesday 8:30pm - 10:00pm, online

    - Saturday 6:30pm - 9:30pm, in-person + online

* Each class is UNIQUE, every class is very important for first year students!

* Students are expected to participate in 80% of the team meetings.

* Homework: expect 3 - 10 hours of homework every week

* Communication: Students are expected to communicate on discord and gmails. Need to read email every other day.

* Students are expected to join the 2 weeks CyberCamps during the summer time or show equal level of training.

* Students are expected to speak up and even make presentations of materials they learned.

* We will provide regular homework assignment and tests in form of images mock-up practices.

* We will form several teams based on performance, subjects alignment, and mutual selection.

* Each team will have a captain. Captain needs to have strong team spirit, leadership trait and proven working record.

* At the same time, coaches will invite the top students to join the elite team. The goal for elite team is to have a better chance to advance to national final competition. The 3 criteria to select top students:

    1) Top performance in 1 of the 3 subjects (Windows, Linux, Network);

    2) Top overall performance;

    3) Top team spirit.

* Equipment requirement: Initially, students can use any computer to participate in the learning activity. However, students are expected to have a laptop with Intel/AMD CPU and at least 16GB of RAM and 512GB SSD Drive with 100GB free space to compete in a team. Costco has good price/warranty on laptops. Expect to spend $800+. Windows machine is preferred. Mac computers with intel chip will work, but are not recommended. Mac computers with M chip will NOT work. Advanced students can use Linux machines, but are not recommended. Chromebook will NOT work. Computer with ARM chip will NOT work.

* Coaches and mentors will do their best to provide the most suitable learning materials. Coaches and mentors are committed to motivate students and ensure core values are implemented throughout the learning journey. However, it is students' responsibility to actually walk the path to success.