---
title: Building Something During Offseason? Check out the Hack Club Arcade!
description: To encourage learning and developing new skills during the off-season, the Hack Club Arcade is an event where you earn prizes by building projects.
image: https://community.firstinspires.org/hubfs/first-community-blog/images/first-blog_frc-ftc_hackclub-arcade-1-1.png
---

While the *FIRST*® season might be over, there’s plenty to do in the off-season! To encourage learning and developing new skills, *FIRST* is collaborating with Hack Club to launch the [Hack Club Arcade](https://hackclub.com/arcade/), an event where you earn prizes by building projects.

[Hack Club](https://hackclub.com/) is a nonprofit that wants to make programming fun for teenagers all around the globe.

In addition to *FIRST* and Hack Club stickers for participating, participants can get prizes such as Bambu 3D printers, Flipper Zeroes, breadboards, MacBooks, Logitech keyboards, Framework laptops, soldering irons, boba 🧋… all the stuff any aspiring teenage maker needs to make more stuff. When you keep shipping, we keep shipping!

Here’s how it works:

- **Join the Hack Club Slack **— a community where you can talk with other tech-minded teens.
- **Work on Projects **— every hour you log earns you 1 ticket.
- **Get Cool Stuff **— exchange your tickets for prizes.

Any student age 18 or under is eligible to participate and earn prizes, though [Arcade](https://hackclub.com/arcade/) is targeted for ages 13-18.

> “I encourage everyone on an FRC [[*FIRST®* Robotics Competition](https://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/frc)] or FTC [[*FIRST*® Tech Challenge](https://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/ftc)] team to participate in Arcade this summer. I'm programming a raytracer for my TI-Nspire calculator while accumulating hours to earn tickets for prizes [see video clip below]. Go team 2826!”
> 
> —Brody, age 14, Wisconsin, a FIRST Robotics Competition participant

Any tech project counts at the Arcade - hardware or software! It doesn’t even have to be team-related, it could just be something you want to do on your own. But if you're not sure where to start, we have a bunch of ready-made projects. Each comes with a handy guide, plus a unique additional prize! Here are just a few:

- [Sprig](https://sprig.hackclub.com/) — Build a video game, get a custom handheld console to run it
- [OnBoard](https://hackclub.com/onboard) — Design a circuit board, get $100 to manufacture it
- [Blot](https://blot.hackclub.com/) — Make art with code, get an open-source plotter robot to draw it

Teenagers can get started with Arcade and earn their first ticket at [https://hackclub.com/arcade/](https://hackclub.com/arcade/).

The Arcade is open until August 31, 2024, and available worldwide. Happy hacking!

*Written by Hack Club*

** [FTC](https://community.firstinspires.org/topic/ftc), [FRC](https://community.firstinspires.org/topic/frc)

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