Image Credit: High Seas, Hack Club
Last winter, I embarked on an exhilarating journey with Hack Club, a global community of 50,000+ teenagers who code, innovate, and shape the future—one project at a time.
I joined Hack Club’s community in November 2024, just in time to dive into an unforgettable event – the High Seas! Running from October 30th, 2024 – January 31st, 2025, this pirate-themed hackathon motivated teenagers to create projects, “ship” them, and watch them “sail” the High Seas. Participants would vote on projects, where two projects of similar timeframe are pitted against each other in a “battle” to decide their quality and impact.
The project’s quality, based on votes, would translate into a virtual currency – “Doubloons”, which could then be redeemed in the shop for technology to empower more projects – from Raspberry Pis to keyboards, 3D printers to laptops. The only catch? Each ship needed be an open-source project with a README file and a working demonstration link.
Thousands of teenagers from across the globe took up the challenge and shipped extraordinary projects, from programming languages to IoT projects, Web IDEs to Networking projects. The program, also known as a YSWS (“You Ship, We Ship”) encouraged me to learn – I not only made projects, I grew. I augmented my understanding of PHP, APIs and JavaScript, through which I made 6 projects:-
SecretSend – A place to see and create all your secret messages!
ProfitPulse – A website to help you learn how much you can earn on various investments – and see how much it’s worth with the Currency Converter!
FileSafe – A safe way to secure your files from prying eyes!
SuperSummary – Your AI-powered Assistant to work smarter, not harder!
ClipCrux – Your ultimate AI tool to watch smarter!
VoiceVault – The ultimate tool to secure your voice messages from prying ears!
The High Seas, in short, encouraged me to go out of my comfort zone and learn something new, to make more creative, useful projects, while also learning from other Hack Clubbers’ projects, as I voted on them!
I received 644 doubloons as the fruition of my efforts, which enabled me to get a NVIDIA® Jetson Orin™ Nano Super Developer Kit – a powerful tool with which I hope to make even more ambitious, AI-powered projects!
Thank you, Hack Club, for an unforgettable voyage!
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