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We are teen hackers from around the world who code together

MarcScott

I recently supervised a Hackclub Counterspell event at our office. I was there only in the capacity of being an adult in the room, for health and safety and safeguarding reasons.

The entire event had been organised by a single teenager, with mini workshops, hack time and a global show and tell.

Kids that attended were not only coders, but musicians and artists as well.

The whole event was amazing, with more pizza than I thought it possible to eat.

The kids produced some genuinely interesting games, learned some new skills, and had a great time socially.

I fully intend to support more events in the future.

hmcq6

> Kids that attended were not only coders, but musicians and artists as well.

Creatives are Creatives. Don't reduce yourself as a programmer purely to a scientist. There is an art in what we do.

Edit: if you disagree then tell me why I have a religiously strong opinion on spaces vs tabs

master-lincoln

> Edit: if you disagree then tell me why I have a religiously strong opinion on spaces vs tabs

Because you did not think this through logically I assume. There is only one answer: indent using tabs, align using spaces. This way the text never looks "broken" on any other machine, and personal preference for how deep indentations should be can be applied.

I think people mostly form strong religious opinions because they want to belong to a group or feel a sense of purpose. Do you feel that when defending your stance on tabs vs spaces?

But I fail to see how this is related to programmers being creatives

inthebin

Personally I don't think there is such a thing as "creatives". All humans are creative - that's what we do, we solve problems by coming up with solutions. Whether that is to create a painting, or coming up with a joke/punchline or writing a novel, or creating a product with code - that's a matter of aptitude/interest and environmental exposure.

hmcq6

No, the answer is that I should never have to think about whether a coworker uses spaces vs tabs. That's a sign that either your text editor/IDE is misconfigured or that your project needs a tool like Prettier.

Also it was a joke. I just thought using the concept of religion might make people consider the spiritual side of a profession that is otherwise mechanical. But no worries. Jokes are always funniest when you're forced to explain them, right?

taylorius

I agree - programming is it's own medium for creation - not just a tool to produce other media.

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mharig

There is art in science, too.

master-lincoln

It's a word without an agreed upon definition that keeps changing. One could probably argue there is art in everything humans do

odshoifsdhfs

I will dive into the webpage a bit better later on, but at a glance I don't seem to be able to find how to 'help' as an adult. Would love to either organize or help something in my town.

I could only find a slack channel to join but no other public info. Was this how you got in touch with them? Or did I miss something?

AdamEXu

it's only organized by teenagers who are a part of hack club :) hack clubbers will then reach out to adults in their city for help organizing the event, but most of the work is done by the teenager.

odshoifsdhfs

Thanks for the reply. No hack clubs in my area so seems it is a no-go for now.

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bartekpacia

HackClub is great. I feel like I aged out of their target demographics recently though.

I can share my single and very positive experience with them. In summer 2020 (I was 18 then), they were going to host/sponsor some hackathons (IIRC), but because of Covid they couldn’t do that so instead they gave away that money to students who had some project idea. If your project was accepted you got $100 for it - but you had to share the result with the community.

I applied and got that 100, and used it to make a remote-controlled mobility scooter [0] with my friend. Not the most useful thing in the world but it was ton of fun!

[0]: https://youtu.be/WWUe42dH6nw

slavik81

I saw the Hack Club presentation at the Ubuntu Summit 2024 ("How 30K teenagers build open source software") and it was an unexpected highlight of the conference for me. I'd expected it to be a boring kids program, but Hack Club looks very cool! https://youtu.be/AdgU-_1vDco

taylorbuley

Love to see these youths reclaim the word "hacker."

eleveriven

And in such a positive light

broodbucket

which is the original meaning.

aleph_minus_one

The original meaning was not only positive: "hacker"/"hacking" always had some subversive/countercultural (though clearly not criminal) undertone in it.

In other words: hackers were only "positive" for the "in-group"; to the establishment, they were annoying (up to somewhat dangerous).

nikisweeting

ArchiveBox uses HackClub Bank, their FSP platform (like Open Collective but better) and we love it. I enjoy using it more than any other billing/invoicing system I've used, and I'm constantly amazed at the quality of software they're able to put out with a team of teenagers!

clacker-o-matic

I helped develop hackatime (https://github.com/hackclub/hackatime/) this fall for our latest project high seas, and it's been a truly amazing experience. I'm 16, and I never thought I would be maintaining and operating a program with over 17 thousand users and 25 million+ rows! It's been a wild ride that I don't think I would have gotten without hackclub :) Also just in general the community is amazingly supportive; I joined a little over a year ago and I've made a ton of really amazing friends that I hope I can keep for the rest of my life ^_^

internetter

Hackclub is currently running a program for high schoolers until January 31st where time spent working on hobby projects is rewarded with prizes. By my understanding the pay rate is about $2-5 dollars per hour, so no replacement for a full time job but if you have kids that code for fun something is better than nothing!

aramsh

Hack Club has absolutely changed my life, I live in a suburban area and there are not many people interested in tech but Hack Club has allowed me to find people like me. I’ve done things I’ve never thought I would do and it’s been such a great thing in my life.

malted

Hey! I work here. Happy to answer any questions!

dang

We'd be happy to help some of these kids do Show HNs of their projects. Would that be of interest?

malted

Absolutely - they’d fit right in here. My email is malted@hackclub.com.

frankacter

Couple of questions:

1) I see the mention of highschool throughout, what about younger hackers that are 13+ (7th & 8th grade)?

2) The directory (https://directory.hackclub.com/) is not working for me. Are there existing clubs in Asia? Specifically Taipei, Taiwan.

exists

For 2), there is a much more comprehensive map at the top of https://toolbox.hackclub.com/ that you can look at

devramsean0

Hi! Hackclubber here.

When we say Highschool, we really mean 18 and under (we have a lot of people from Middle-school and up)

anscg

Hello frankacter, Hong Kong hackclubber here ^-^ there will be a Hack Club Highschool Hackathon hosted in Taipei at March and they'll announce more information on instagram.com/hackit.tw

frankacter

thanks for the reply, that is an odd instagram you've linked. It was just set up a couple of months ago, has made 0 posts and follows no one. It links to https://hackit.tw and https://counterspell.hackit.tw, neither of which seem to resolve.

I found this Thread post ( https://www.threads.net/@hackit.tw?xmt=AQGzSJCZSi-xlWjNR7_1C... ) which seems to suggest that Counterspell (?) is doing a combined hackathon with GenAI Hackathon sometime in 2025.

I've followed their social, but for "hackers", it certainly feels off.

creditscoresong

Can home-educated teenagers with government issued ID join? Throughout the site, high school student and teenager seem to be used interchangeably. At https://hack.club/high-seas-faq: "Who can participate in High Seas?" "Anyone 18 or under can participate in High Seas![...]" "Why do I have to verify?" "We need to make sure that you’re a high school student.[...]" "What form of ID is accepted?" "A government issued ID (eg. drivers license or passport), or A dated school ID[...]"

zachlatta

Yes, definitely. We consider anyone ages 13-18 a “high schooler”.

__rito__

I see that in-person clubs are for High Schoolers only. But, is everything else for only high schoolers?

mingyeow

Hey, what’s the best way to sponsor this?

ThinkBeat

How is this all financed?

The front-page talks about giving away "Get free Raspberry Pis, Framework Laptops, iPads, and more."

Oh they do have transparency on it. I was confused about the "fiscal sponsorship" tab since it appears also to be a product they are selling at 7% of income.

They appear to do well with nearly $6 million USD(?) in their "checking account) Good for them.

zachlatta

Founder here. Donations are the vast majority of Hack Club's revenue and make it possible and free for teenagers. Donate here: https://hackclub.com/philanthropy/

We also make a very small amount of revenue through the fiscal sponsorship program the other commenter mentioned: https://hackclub.com/fiscal-sponsorship/

mikeyouse

501c3 nonprofits can ‘fiscally sponsor’ projects that are too small for their own nonprofit but still need all the same legal/accounting/finance support. Some of that $6M in their checking account will ‘belong’ to the projects they are sponsoring. Basically like a nonprofit incubator.

rhysmp

I work at Hack Club on our fiscal sponsorship team and wanted to clarify something: each fiscally sponsored organization has its own account, with funds stored and represented separately on the HCB platform.

You can check out some of these nonprofits and their transparent finances at this link: https://hackclub.com/fiscal-sponsorship/directory/

radioblahaj

Hack Club is also 100% transparent, and you can see all of our spending here: https://hcb.hackclub.com/hq

cschep

this is so cool. hats off to the creators. I bet it's a ton of logistics to manage. I surfed around the site but couldn't find any information re: volunteering with them? I wonder if they need them and what kind of commitment it would be? I'd be interested!

linsomniac

They mostly seem to be "by and for high schoolers". This is what I was told when I was asking how I could help with my son setting something up.

radioblahaj

Hack Club is run by adults (you can see the team page here: https://hackclub.com/team), and every aspect of Hack Club is also built by teenagers contributing to everything from HCB (our fiscal sponsership platform) to High Seas (https://highseas.hackclub.com), a program we're running right now.

Happy to help if you still need help setting something up for your son :)

jamietanna

Changelog did a great interview with Akon from Hack Club recently: https://changelog.com/podcast/620

AdamEXu

Akon (sob)