CODING AND PROGRAMMING

Coding & Programming challenges members to design and develop a standalone application that solves a specific problem or accomplishes a defined task.This competitive event consists of a pre-judged portion only on the state level.

Event Overview

Division: High School
Event Type: Team of 1, 2 or 3 members
Event Category: Pre-judged
Event Elements: Pre-judged program only on the state level
Career Cluster Framework Connection: Digital Technology

NACE Competency Alignment: Career & Self-Development, Critical Thinking, Communication, Leadership, Professionalism, Technology

2025-2026 Topic

Byte-Sized Business Boost

Use your programming skills to build a tool that helps users discover and support small, local businesses in their community. Your program can be a command-line tool, desktop application, or interactive interface. You choose what best fits your coding approach.

Your program should include features such as:

· Sorting businesses by category (e.g., food, retail, services)

· Allowing users to leave reviews or ratings

· Sorting businesses by reviews or ratings

· Saving or bookmarking favorite businesses

· Include a way to display special deals or coupons

· Implementing a verification step to prevent bot activity

 This topic was created in partnership with code.org. Learn more about code.org, resources available, and expanding computer science in your school or district at this link.

District

Check with your District leadership for District-specific competition information.

State

Eligibility

·         FBLA membership dues are paid by 11:59 pm Eastern Time on December 1 (or earlier date specified by District Director) of the current program year.

·         Members may compete in an event at the State Leadership Conference (SLC) more than once if they have not previously placed in the top ten of that event at the National Leadership Conference (NLC). If a member places in the top ten of an event at NLC, they are no longer eligible to compete in that event.

·         Members must be registered for the SLC and pay the state conference registration fee in order to participate in competitive events.

·         Members must stay within the official FBLA housing block of the official FBLA hotel in order to compete.

·         Each district may be represented by participant(s) based on the Florida FBLA scaled quota system found on the Florida FBLA website.

·         Each competitor can only compete in one individual/team event and one chapter event (American Enterprise Project, Community Service Project, Local Chapter Annual Business Report, Partnership with Business Project).

·         Only competitors are allowed to plan, research, and prepare their program.

·         All members of a team must consist of individuals from the same chapter.

Recognition

·         The number of competitors will determine the number of winners. The maximum number of winners for each competitive event is 5.

Event Administration

·         Prejudged Project

  • Data must be free of viruses/malware.  Any entry with contaminated data will not be judged.

  • Solution must run standalone with no programming errors.

  • Program produced must be prepared by the competitor(s) without help.

  • All individuals on a team must be from the same chapter.

  • Competitors are expected to follow all applicable copyright laws. 

  • The completed project MUST be uploaded to one of the following cloud based storages:  Google Drive, OneDrive, or Dropbox.  You CANNOT host the project on your own server or website.  You must provide a link to your project and directions on how to open and run the code.  It should not be password protected. Your completed project must be uploaded and locked by the date specified in the State Conference registration packet.  You cannot make any changes after the submission date listed in the SLC registration packet.

  • The link to the project must be submitted through the conference registration program by the date specified in the SLC registration packet.

 Scoring

·         The pre-judged score will determine the winners.
·         Judges must break ties. All judges’ decisions are final. All judging decisions are final. Results announced at the National Leadership Conference are considered official and will not be changed after the conclusion of the National Leadership Conference.

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

·         FBLA complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by providing reasonable accommodations for competitors. Accommodation requests must be submitted through the conference registration system by the official registration deadline. All requests will be reviewed, and additional documentation may be required to determine eligibility and appropriate support.

Recording of Presentations

·         No unauthorized audio or video recording devices will be allowed in any competitive event.
·         Competitors in the events should be aware FBLA reserves the right to record any presentation for use in study or training materials.

Penalty Points

·         Competitors may be disqualified if they violate the Competitive Event Guidelines or the Honor Code.

National

If you are competing on the National level, be sure to see the National guidelines at https://www.fbla.org/divisions/fbla/fbla-competitive-events/