Hello FIRST Friends!
My name is Saran! I am a recent alumnus of FRC 10021 and a current volunteer and Hack Club member.
You may have seen Hack Club’s name around the FIRST Community! From hosting in-person hackathons to virtual workshops, Hack Club is a place to become more technical and immerse yourself in coding, and find a community of like-minded peers!
Now, I’m excited to tell you about how to earn a trip to New York City to compete in the year’s largest all-girl high school hackathon! It’s called Athena!
In the past year, we have wrapped up three major events: High Seas, Arcade, and Scrapyard. High Seas alone got 25,000 teens participating, 50,000+ hours spent coding, and deploying 3,800+ technical projects. Hack Club has provided a space for teen coders to ship projects that they love and find their community.
Along with next year’s incredible adventures: Neighborhood, Highway, and Shipwrecked, we now have a new major event coming up just for girls and non-binary teenagers, especially those who are involved in FIRST, through Hack Club’s Athena Initiative!
Hack Club’s Athena Award is a six-month-long STEM program for girls and non-binary high schoolers.
To be eligible, you will need to code for 30 hours and ‘ship’** three projects ranging from basic HTML & CSS to complex hardware projects.
After meeting these requirements, you’ll receive a digital certificate recognized by MIT, GitHub, and Girls Who Code, along with an invite to spend the weekend of November 14th-16th in NYC for an all-girl hackathon!
This is a perfect activity for FIRST team members looking for something technical to accomplish this off-season.
Even if you don’t have a project in mind, check out the more than 20 free workshops available for inspiration – build a web OS or design a game, create PCBs, or make a USB hub.
How does it work?
Code for 30 hours 
Spend 30 hours hacking on cool technical projects! Examples: building a blogging website, coding a desktop and mobile app, or creating a video game. For every hour you code, you earn Artifacts, which you can spend on fantastic new prizes in the shop!
Ship three projects 
Share your projects with our community of teen makers. Sign in with the Hack Club Slack and ship them! You can earn even more Artifacts for each project shipped to the gallery! Projects must be registered on award.athena.hackclub.com
Receive the Athena Award 
Earn the Hack Club Athena Award, an official technical certificate recognized by MIT, GitHub, Girls Who Code, Black Girls Code, Girl Scouts, and more. You’ll also unlock awesome prizes as you earn artifacts, including a chance to participate in an exclusive hackathon in New York - with travel stipends available!
Sounds awesome! Where do I sign up?
Visit Athena to get started!
Can I participate in the Athena Awards?
You can participate if you self-identify as a girl, a current high school/secondary student and/or 13 to 18 years of age. Adults who graduated from high school are not eligible to participate.
If this program isn’t for you, check out what else Hack Club has to offer at hackclub.com and join the Hack Club Slack at hackclub.com/slack to meet a community of teen coders and be notified of any new events Hack Club hosts!
** - Deploying a technical project online, viewable through an open-source repository service or URL.