Hey hackers!

We’re so glad to have seen so many students quickly adapt to the Sprig builder, even without any prior JavaScript experience! Soon, you will all have your own games uploaded to your personal Sprig console :)


As last week was a brief introduction to the Sprig builder & JavaScript, these next few weeks will be devoted to further developing familiarity with using JavaScript along with creating a more complex game by using more of the Sprig library.


Feel free to view the following two documentations for JavaScript and Sprig if you are still stuck/confused!


ps: to insure that you don’t miss any future BLS Hack Club emails, make sure to mark BLS Hack Club emails as important so Google knows to mark them important in the future

Projected Timeline

Every Friday in Room 306 @ 2:30 - 3:30 PM

The following is subject to change. Updated every week. Check latest emails for changes.

  • (10/25): Sprig (Tutorial Part 2)

  • (11/01): Sprig (Tutorial Part 3)

  • (11/08): Sprig (Finish-up Tutorial / Game Work Day)

  • (11/15): Sprig (Game Work Day)

  • (11/22): Sprig (Game Work Day / Wrap-up)

  • (11/29): No Meeting (Thanksgiving Break)

  • (12/06): Sprig/Spline (Wrap-up / Spline Introduction)

  • (12/13): Spline (Case Work Day)

  • (12/20): Spline (Case Work Day)

  • (12/27): No Meeting (Winter Break)

Week One Recap


Don’t worry if you couldn’t make it to last week’s meeting, follow the following instructions to get caught up! We went over some basic JavaScript syntax (you don’t have to read all of it, just skim it/use it as a reference when doing the tutorial).


Then, we started getting familiar with the Sprig builder. Head to sprig.hackclub.com. Click “Log In” in the top right corner. Put in your email. Click “Gallery” in the top left corner. Click the first game called “getting_started”. Click “Remix to save edits” in the top right corner. Follow along with the “Tutorial” in the bottom right corner (should look like the image below). There is a slider at the top of the Tutorial box that you can slide to make the Tutorial window bigger and easier to read.


Make sure to read everything carefully and use the hints if you get stuck! Try to finish the tutorial before next meeting, but don’t worry if you can’t Finish. If you’re really stuck we can help you in person on Friday. See you then!


Optional: Sprig Library Documentation

CURRENT WORKSHOP: SPRIG

Sprig is a game editor, game engine/handheld gaming console all built by Hack Club.

Sprig is an awesome tool to get started in programming! Sprig uses the JavaScript programming language, which is one of the most popular in the world. By coding games in Sprig, you'll get familiar with the language used to code many of the world's websites, apps, and games. Additionally, many of the concepts you'll learn are applicable to all of programming. And, most importantly, you’ll be able to get your own console by the end of the workshops!


We want to stress that no programming experience is required and we invite everyone to come to the workshops :)

International Hack Club News

MTA Open Data Challenge

Choo choo!


The MTA is doing an open data challenge until the 25th Oct (in 4 days!). They will give the best project a piece of vintage New York City Transit memorabilia & we want a Hack Clubber to win it. Just complete a project (it could be a data visualization, a piece of art, anything) using one of their datasets!

Low Skies

 THE SKY IS FALLING! And in the distance, large swaths of seemingly knight-themed items rain down castles... hardware... currency... and are those dragons???


LOW SKIES: Hack Club’s two-week event where you build, battle, and power up!How this works:

  1. Work on personal projects! Use Hackatime to keep track of amount of time spent.

  2. Enter finished projects into the Thunderdome! When you ship your project, it will battle against other projects, as you and your peers vote between them in 1v1 matchups.

  3. Once your project has done ten battles, you'll get scales (taken straight from... your opponent's dragon?) based on how many hours you spent on it—and how it performed in the Thunderdome. Spends scales in the Shoppe for rewards, from Blahajs to Yubikeys!


 Start Low Skies today: low-skies.hackclub.com 
 Join the slack channel! #low-skies The dragons are calling... I'll see you in the sky! 

Join our Discord below to interact directly with us/provide feedback and make sure to follow our Instagram below to stay on top of updates :)