This summer, SHA’s Hack Club, led by recent grads Arianna Martinelli and Vittoria Riedling, hosted 502Hacks, a free hackathon for 35 middle and high school students. A hackathon is a social coding event where participants attend workshops and collaborate on projects (think hacking like creating, not hacking banks or the government).
SHA's coding club is part of an international network of high school coding clubs called Hack Club which has a financial arm that fiscally sponsors high school student nonprofit projects. Martinelli and Reidling applied for and received a $500 grant from the Hack Club Bank and partner FIRST, a robotics nonprofit, to execute 502 Hacks. They both also received funding for their respective nonprofits (Tandem and Run on Change 5k) from Hack Club Bank.
The girls had to meet specific parameters to qualify for the grant: it had to be student-run, an 8-hour, in-person event, and include a handmade website using technical web development like HTML, CSS, and JS rather than a website creator like Wix) https://502hacks.com.
The hackathon’s theme at SHA was “Coder Carnival: Coding Made Fun,” and many students coded text-based programs for the first time (not drag-and-drop) in the personal website workshop using HTML, CSS, and JS. The event included three workshops: Personal Website (web development), Figma (User Design), and STEM led by UPS (marshmallow building activity). All students created at least one project and presented it to other attendees and their parents, and students who coded for the first time won awards and continue to work on their projects post-hackathon.
The creative 502 Hacks lanyards were designed by SHA student and recent grad Isabella Yochum and laser cut on SHA's Glowforge laser cutter.
In addition to co-founders of SHA’s Hack Club, Arianna and Vittoria, the 502Hacks team included students Alex Buckner, Bridget Egan, Arabella Guerrero, Kate Bonar, and Molly Marr and faculty advisor Mrs. Kuebbing. Several adult community members attended and assisted, such as Alex Gornet (from Major League Hacking), Dr. Brown and Amy Nall (Archdiocese of Louisville), Jade Brown (Microsoft Future of Work Initiative), Mrs. Hudson Mrs. Schurman and Mrs. Bildstein (teacher moderators), and UPS STEM workshop leaders Anna Workman, Blake Stowell, Lara Zuber, Desiree Johnson, and Drew Callor.
Fun side note: the team also received a $2 donation to raise the budget of 502Hacks to $502.
You can view the students’ projects here and photos from outstanding SHA student photographer Eva Carias here. If you have any questions for the SHA Hack Club, email them at [email protected].