Welcome to Lockheed Martin Quest!
We're proud to be able to offer these exciting competitions for high school students! By completing these challenges, teams will be able to exercise their programming and cybersecurity skills and prepare to become the next generation of industry leaders. By applying for internship opportunities, students have the ability to kick-start their careers even before their first college class. Learn more about these unique events and how Lockheed Martin can support your student's technical growth.
Code Quest®
Code Quest® is Lockheed Martin's annual high-school programming competition, pitting teams of 2-3 students against a set of increasingly difficult programming problems.
Lockheed Martin CYBERQUEST®
Lockheed Martin CYBERQUEST® is the annual cybersecurity competition for high school students. Faced with a wide range of scenarios, teams of up to five must complete as many as possible before time runs out.
What is Code Quest®?
Code Quest® challenges teams of 2-3 high school students to solve as many programming problems as possible within a 2.5-hour-long contest. Problems are solved by writing programs in Java, Python, C++, or C# that must read input from the console, and calculate the correct output to present to the judging system. If the program produces the correct response, the problem is solved!
This contest is designed to provide a challenge for programmers of all skill levels - from those students just learning the basics of programming, to those who are taking on advanced challenges and exploring the limits of software engineering. The competition is divided into two divisions: Novice, for students with less than one year's experience in programming; and Advanced, for those with a broader range of experience. Both divisions are presented with the same set of problems, but are scored separately, ensuring that every team has an opportunity to succeed.
The problems used at Code Quest® cover a broad range of scenarios, although as often as possible attempt to demonstrate real-life scenarios that a programmer might expect to encounter during the course of their career. Many problems are inspired by actual projects taking place at Lockheed Martin. Each year, a Coach's Resource Packet is provided to teachers that includes additional information about the topics covered in a selection of problems used in that year's contest.
For more information about the official rules for this contest, please visit our Official Rules page.
What About the Problems?
Code Quest® problems cover a broad range of topics and difficulties, suitable for students of all skill levels. Some concepts may include:
- Logic control structures
- String manipulation
- Advanced mathematics
- Recursion
- Data structures
- Path finding
- NP-complete problems
- Machine learning
Points are awarded for each problem solved based on difficulty, with the easiest problems worth 5 points, and the hardest problems typically worth 70 or more points.
To see examples of problems used in past Code Quest® competitions, visit the Code Quest Academy website at https://lmcodequestacademy.com.
What About the Challenges?
Lockheed Martin CYBERQUEST® challenges are developed each year to deal with a wide range of possible cybersecurity threats including:
- Cryptography
- Steganography
- System penetration
- Incident response
- Reverse engineering
- Operating system hacks
- Web exploits
- Social engineering
As teams complete each challenge, they gain access to a "flag" (a short message), which can be provided to the contest website in exchange for points. Points can then be spent to receive clues on how to solve other challenges.
What is Lockheed Martin CYBERQUEST®?
Lockheed Martin CYBERQUEST® provides teams of up to 5 high school students the opportunity to assume the role of a cybersecurity engineer by taking on a series of challenges that build upon one another to fully test the team's skills. Teams are encouraged to use any tools available to them in order to find their way into an adversary's computer system, to defend their own systems against attack, or to put together the clues when investigating an attack that has already occurred.
The challenges for Lockheed Martin CYBERQUEST® are created by Lockheed Martin employees each year to simulate real-life scenarios that occur frequently around the world. Multiple teams across our cybersecurity landscape work closely with this program to ensure that the challenges we present represent the cutting edge of both attacks and defense in the world of cybersecurity. Students are invited to throw their full weight against these challenges, as they take place on isolated systems created specifically for the purpose of the contest.
After the contest is over, our volunteers set aside time to answer questions from students and explain how certain challenges should be tackled, to ensure that every student has a chance to learn from their efforts.
For more information about the official rules for this contest, please visit our Official Rules page.
Career Development Opportunities
Students who participate in Code Quest® or Lockheed Martin CYBERQUEST® events in the United States are given the opportunity to apply for internships at Lockheed Martin. These valuable experiences provide students with real work experience even before they set foot in a college classroom. Students will be given the opportunity to work on actual Lockheed Martin programs and see first-hand what it's like to work for a major industry leader.
Information about how to apply for these internships is made available to teachers at the contest events, and only students who participated in the event are eligible to apply. Please note that the number of available internships is limited each year, and certain work locations may have additional restrictions related to citizenship and work eligibility. Students applying for an internship will be required to take part in an interview process and, if accepted to the internship, a background check and drug screening. Performance in the competition(s) is not a factor in the hiring process.
While students take part in the contests, teachers are also able to take part in discussion panels to provide them with resources towards expanding their student's knowledge and prepare them to start a career in software development or cybersecurity. These discussion panels include a wide range of Lockheed Martin employees, from executives to managers to new employees, including some who previously participated in these events as student. We look forward to helping you support your students as they aim to become the next generation of technical engineers.
For more information about the internship opportunities offered through Quest competitions or the career development resources we can offer to educators, please contact us using the email addresses at the bottom of this page.
Code Quest Academy
Code Quest Academy allows you to bring Code Quest® directly into your classroom. This program pairs your class with a volunteer Lockheed Martin employee, who will virtually meet with your students in a series of one-hour-long mentoring sessions leading up to the Code Quest® event.
Students and teachers alike are also welcome to join us at the Code Quest Academy website at https://lmcodequestacademy.com. Students can test their skills against hundreds of programming problems previously used in Code Quest® competitions. Teachers can create classes within the website to monitor their student's progress and help them succeed.
For more information about this program or to be added to our mailing list to be notified when registration for the mentoring program opens, please contact us at code-quest-academy.gr-eo@lmco.com.
Frequently Asked Questions
We are always happy to help both you and your students, so if your question isn't answered here, please contact us by email using the buttons at the bottom of this page!
Is There Any Cost To Attend These Events?
No. Both Code Quest® and Lockheed Martin CYBERQUEST® are free to attend, and always will be. Lunch is provided for everyone attending our in-person events. You are responsible for obtaining your own transportation to and from the event, as well as providing computers for the students to use during the event.
Who Can Attend These Events?
We welcome students in high school (grades 9-12) to participate in the event; in general, this refers to children from the ages of 13-18 who have not started a college program. Students attending an event (including our virtual events) must be accompanied by a responsible adult over the age of 18, usually a teacher.
Parents and other spectators are not permitted to attend our events, both due to the limited space available and security concerns. Students below age 13 may not attend our event and may not be registered in our system due to US and EU laws regarding privacy protections for young children. Students over the age of 18 are usually not eligible to attend our events.
I've Registered My Class for Code Quest Academy; Are We Automatically Registered for Code Quest?
No; Code Quest Academy and Code Quest® are separate programs and have different registration requirements. Being registered for Code Quest Academy mentoring sessions grants you access to early registration for the Code Quest® contest, but you still must complete registration for each student and team that will participate in Code Quest®. Please also be aware that attendance at Code Quest® is often strictly limited due to physical space limitations, technical constraints, and/or volunteer availability (for both virtual and on-site events), so we may not be able to accomodate the attendance of your entire class at the Code Quest® contest.
What Information Do I Need to Register (And Why)?
In order to complete registration for our events, you will be required to provide the following information:
- School name
- School address
- For yourself:
- Full name
- Phone number
- Email address
- Birthdate
- For each student:
- Full name
- Birthdate
Additionally, if attending a physical/in-person location, you will be required to provide the following information for each person (yourself and each student):
- Country of citizenship
- US Green Card number & expiration (for US permanent residents attending a US physical site)
- Passport number & country of issue (for persons attending a site in a country in which they are not a citizen)
- Country of birth (for persons attending a site in a country in which they are not a citizen)
In order to protect the privacy of yourself and your students, we aim to collect as little personal information as possible. However, Lockheed Martin is a national defense contractor, and as such must maintain a high level of security at all of our sites. As a result, our security office requires that we collect the birthdate and country of citizenship for each person attending any of our sites in-person. Foreign nationals will be required to disclose additional information regarding their passport or (if a US permanent resident attending a US site) their US Green Card. At a very few of our sites, foreign nationals may not be able to attend due to heightened security. If such a restriction exists, this will be highlighted as you complete the registration form.
Unfortunately we are unable to make any exceptions to these policies, and thank you for your understanding and cooperation. If providing this information presents difficulties or risks for you or your students, or one or more of you are unable to attend your local site due to nationality restrictions, we invite you to register instead at one of our virtual contest sites. Citizenship information is not collected for persons attending a virtual contest.
For more information about why we collect your information, how we protect it, and what your rights are with respect to that information, please see our Privacy Policy.
How Does the Registration Process Work?
When you log into your account for the first time, you will be required to create your 'coach profile', containing information about you, your school, and which site you would like to attend for each event. Once this is complete, you can register students and assign them to teams. Team registrations will then be reviewed by our volunteer team. Assuming all is well, you will then be asked to provide signed copies of any legal documents required at the site you are attending (such as photo releases, liability waivers, etc.) for each person. Once uploaded, these documents will also be reviewed by our volunteer team. Once all documents are received and approved, your team is ready to attend the event!
Throughout this process, you will receive emails to keep you updated about the status of each team, including if any corrections or updates are required. You can also continue to make updates to the information for yourself, your students, or their teams (however this information will likely be locked a few days before the event to allow us to make final preparations).
Can I Sign Legal Documents For My Students?
Most of our sites will require a set of legal documents - typically photo releases and liability waivers - that must be signed for each person attending the event. These documents may only be signed by persons age 18 and above; for students under the age of 18, they must be signed by the student's parent or legal guardian on the student's behalf. Coaches may not sign documents on behalf of students, unless the coach is that student's parent or legal guardian. Our volunteers will reject documents that do not appear to be correctly signed.
For a list of all legal documents required at each site, please visit our Legal Documents page.