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MarcScott · 8 months ago
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 · 8 months ago
> 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 · 8 months ago
> 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

taylorius · 8 months ago
I agree - programming is it's own medium for creation - not just a tool to produce other media.

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mharig · 8 months ago
There is art in science, too.
odshoifsdhfs · 8 months ago
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 · 8 months ago
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.

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bartekpacia · 8 months ago
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 · 8 months ago
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 · 8 months ago
Love to see these youths reclaim the word "hacker."
eleveriven · 8 months ago
And in such a positive light
broodbucket · 8 months ago
which is the original meaning.
nikisweeting · 8 months ago
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 · 8 months ago
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 · 8 months ago
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 · 8 months ago
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.