Highway to Undercity
Published on: July 20, 2025
2 min read
Hack Club electronics organizing
Highway to Undercity: Reviewing + Staffing
This summer I served on Undercity staff (Hack Club’s 4-day hardware hackathon at GitHub HQ, San Francisco) and as a project reviewer for Highway (the grant program that feeds into Undercity). I personally reviewed 200+ individual projects — everything from custom PCBs and weird controllers to custom 3D printers.
Featured films
We Hosted the Largest Hardware Hackathon (Undercity Doc)
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Between Highway grants and Undercity’s 72-hour build sprint, teens shipped dozens of wild hardware projects!
Quick facts
- Highway (grants): Up to $350 per project for teen hardware builds; earn points by shipping projects
- Undercity (finale): July 11–14, 2025 @ GitHub HQ (SF) — teens from 19 countries, 166 makers, 75 projects demoed
- My roles: Highway Project Reviewer (200+ projects) • Undercity Staff (check-in, operations, support)
What I did
- Project reviews (200+): Evaluated submissions for build clarity, feasibility, BOM, safety, and learning goals; left actionable feedback to help with iteration
- Staffing at Undercity: Check-in, tool lending, lab safety, mentor soldering, late-night debugging and demo coaching
- Make my own Project: Created my own Highway project, a fully custom (infinitely expandable) mechanical keyboard with hand-wired RGB lights and a 3D-printed case
Photos
About Highway & Undercity
Highway is Hack Club’s summer hardware program — ship projects, get funded, and collect points. Undercity is the invite-only, in-person 4-day finale at GitHub HQ where teams build and demo hardware in 72 hours (food + tools provided, sleep at HQ).
- Highway site: https://highway.hackclub.com/
- Undercity recap: https://undercity.hackclub.com/
Resources & links
- Highway project gallery: https://highway.hackclub.com/projects
- Documentary (above)
- My Highway project (custom mechanical keyboard): https://highway.hackclub.com/projects/sharkingstudios/riptide