Bridgewater-Raritan High School recently saw the most recent addition to its club roster with BRHS Hacksters, which held its inaugural meeting on Thursday, May 1. The club, headed by juniors Mohit Srinivasan and Abdullah Kamran, seeks to  provide computer-science-related opportunities to high schoolers and STEM-based tutoring for younger students in the district.

Importantly, these two functions are performed by different halves of the club, alluded to by its name: Hacksters is a portmanteau of the separate organizations Hack Club and STEMsters, both of which are national organizations with chapters across the country. Hack Club is a global network that empowers high school students to become makers and leaders through coding. It provides resources such as workshops, community events and a supportive online Slack community.

Meanwhile, STEMsters is a national student-run nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering a passion for STEM in elementary and middle schoolers through interactive educational events held at community centers. Both organizations provide some level of funding and access to event venues to their chapters.

This level of backing was clearly seen through the structure of the club’s first event, the Hack Club’s Boba Drops. The initiative, managed by Hack Club, saw students build and host their own websites, rewarding their efforts with a $5 boba tea voucher. These sites could have been anything, but at minimum had to include both HTML and CSS (the most basic web development languages), as well as an image and colored elements.

The event sought to introduce students to a basic level of website development and build a sense of community. Thus, members present at the meeting worked to build their own unique websites within an hour, before submitting them to redeem their boba vouchers.

Reflecting on the event, club co-president Mohit Srinivasan spoke on his view of the first club event.

“Seeing our peers dive into coding and create their own websites was incredibly rewarding. The boba was a sweet bonus!” he said.

Abdullah Kamran, the club’s other co-president addressed the impact of the organization’s efforts.

“Combining the creative energy of Hack Club with the educational mission of STEMsters allows us to make a meaningful impact both within our school and the broader community,” he said.

Freshman and club member Arihaan Mallick gave his take on the event.

“I didn’t know coding could be this fun. I’m really looking forward to the next meeting. I want to learn how to make my own game or app one day,” he said.

While the next Hack Club-oriented meeting will be in a few weeks, Hack Club also hosted another event from its STEMsters side: a hands-on lesson on gravity for middle schoolers at the MLK Learning Center in Bridgewater.