We Hosted the Largest Hardware Hackathon

Описание: On July 11-13, two teenagers, organized and lead the largest four-day hackathon for teenage builders. This was the first time we ever did a full-on hardware hackathon, and a large shoutout to ‪@GitHub‬ for donating their space to use as a venue.

❋ The way it was set-up was, before Undercity there was an online program called Highway, where teenagers would build their own hardware projects, fully designed and CADed by them, and in doing that, we would fund their project up to a $250. After they've made 1-3 projects depending on the difficulty they would receive a number points. Once you had enough points you were officially invited to Undercity, a four-day hardware hackathon, at GitHub HQ in SF.

❋ This entire hackathon was run and lead by Acon and Alex, with the help of 10-15 other teenagers behind the scenes. From making the merch, to mapping out the system for people to get hardware, to mentoring others on late-night calls long before the hackathon, review, review, review. This event was a labor of love. These teenagers just wanted to see something like this in the world and instead of waiting for it, they decided to forefront it.

❋ Roughly 160 other teenagers were also waiting for this, because that's the amount of attendees we had in that building that weekend. And best part was we had about 76 projects shipped. Real, quality projects that were creative, thoughtful, and interactive.

❋ After going around talking to everyone about their projects, I found that a lot of these kids were actually beginners before they started Highway and because they did their due diligence trying something new, learning as they made mistakes. Being a hardware hacker slowly become apart of their identity. The difference between you and the person you want to be is simply doing it.

❋ If you're a teenager, there is nothing different between you and the teenagers at this hackathon. People will say that "they're not this type of person" "this is too complicated for me to get into," but I promise you none of these other kids were born knowing how to solder or CAD, you have to have the courage to fail, and slowly and surely, you'll find people will start asking YOU how to start and do what you're doing.
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