How I Ran Out of Chairs At My Last Hack Club Meeting

if you’ve read the title already - yes, the room was that full.

i’m sahiti, a hack clubber from atlanta, georgia. and this crazy story started approximately two weeks ago when my friend dieter said this to me:

hack club is the largest community of teen hackers online, support by the club leaders who run their own technology (coding) clubs at their own school or community. it’s completely free to join, but is a huge network of likeminded teens and space with made cool technology grant projects such as onboard and boba drops.

dieter’s plan was simple (though i still had my many doubts): 1. it included me having the most epic club meeting ever 2. it meant him flying all the way from vermont (where he was the videographer at hack club hq) and 3. creating the most viral, all-around fire documentary on what it meant to be a club leader (something that hack club didn’t have yet).

but like all crazy, wild hack club ideas, we said “let’s go for it”.

step one: plan the most epic club meeting ever

first things first, i realized it would be quite embarrassing if dieter flew on a $500 flight to my state and no one showed up to my hack club meeting. so i knew i had to take action: i asked myself, how do i make sure that room fills up?

two simple solutions came out of my pondering: i could offer the world’s coolest coding club meeting activity ever that no other class or club could offer at my school or i could give teenagers what they wanted: pan crust pizza.

spoiler alert: like most bold hack club ideas, i chose to go above and beyond by doing both.

and just lucky for me, hack club had recently released their latest (and in my opinion, coolest) you-ship-we-ship yet: blot. any teenager who went to the site and learned how to code their own art would get a machine that drew it for them.

so i put aside my calculus homework, and hopped onto the javascript editor on the blot website. in about 10 hours on a saturday, i had my first iteration of what seemed to be a flower:

i was actually planning on hosting blossom, a gender-focused hackathon event for girl scouts in a month in part of hack club’s days of service program and felt like getting a blot machine would also serve as a fun workshop to do at the event. two birds, one stone.

my initial pr was reviewed by engineers who later gave me suggestions on how to make it more technically impressive. the entire process can be found here.

my final flower code and art can be found on the gallery at blot.hackclub.com/gallery!

once my pull request was approved, i got shipped the parts of my blot machine and (with a lot of help from my younger brother) put together the drawing machine at my house.

next things next, i come up with the most elaborate marketing strategy that has ever been implemented at my school, and thomas, my friend and clubs engineer at hack club - helped me make a poster for my event.

this poster was posted up in every hallway, every engineering and computer science class, every bathroom stall, and every technical group forum that our school had.

and with that, i had delivered on the three Fs of a successful club meeting: food, fun activity, and fancy stickers that i used to hang up posters.

soon thereafter, dieter arrived to the peach state of georgia and experienced waffle house.

we met up with david, another fellow club leader in the state of georgia to grab boba and discussed issues that we commonly faced as club leaders.

for example, school administration being against the idea of a “hack club” was quite common and was a big reason why david had trouble starting his own club. i too faced the same situation with my school’s administration, leading me to write this letter to the vice principal of my school.

step two: have the meeting

finally, the day of the meeting came. christian, my co-leader, and i were ready to run the most epic hack club meeting ever, featuring blot. we set up the blot machine at the front of the room and connected it to a camera, projecting the live feed onto the board so everyone could see the machine in action.

about an hour prior i picked up over $100 of pizza and donuts through the hack club pizza grant: (any coding club with in person meetings can get $100 worth of free food by applying)

but soon, as people started to trickle into the room… i realized that unfortunately, we had vastly underestimated how motivating free food after school would be and should have bought more.

we kicked off the meeting by explaining the basics of blot and how it works. with the blot machine projected on the board, we demonstrated how to write simple javascript to create art. we made sure to cater to all skill levels, ensuring beginners felt welcome and experienced coders found it engaging.

christian and i took turns walking through the code, showing how small changes could create different designs. we even had a few participants come up and try their hand at coding live, guiding them through the process and celebrating their creations as the blot machine drew them out.

the room buzzed with excitement as more students got involved. to keep the momentum going, we promised that anyone who successfully coded their own art during the meeting would get a free blot machine shipped to their home. this incentive drove even more participation and enthusiasm.

by the end of the meeting, the room was packed, the pizza and donuts were gone, and everyone had a great time. the combination of a fun activity, the promise of free blot machines, and, of course, the delicious food made this the most memorable hack club meeting yet.

step three: debrief afterwards

overall the meeting went great. since this article has been a lot of words, here are a few numbers:

• 65: participants (largest meeting yet)
• 61: percentage of project creation rate (this number was lower than usual 89%, but more projects in quantity were created)
• 128: dollars spent on pizza and donuts combined
• 0: and most importantly, the number of empty chairs left in that room

step four: don't wait: start a hack club.

i learned about hack club through a medium article written by zach latta about two years ago, and so it’s so touching for me to now be writing my very own to share my story as a club leader.

watch the full documentary that dieter made here:

tl;dr: elements that make great hack clubs include enthusiasm from you as a leader! proper marketing, food, and having a great pre-made hands-on experience can also assist with this.

and don’t wait! apply to run your own hack club today, trust me it changed my life: https://hackclub.com/clubs/