Moonshot: An Unforgettable Hackathon

In December, I went to Moonshot, a four-day Hack Club event in Orlando, Florida. Around 30 Hack Clubbers from all over the world flew in from December 12–15, and we spent the trip coding, building projects, and just having a really good time.

What Moonshot Was Like

Moonshot was run by Hack Club, which supports students who like coding, hardware, and building awesome stuff. The whole point was to bring a bunch of motivated students together, give us space to work on projects we actually cared about, and then do some really fun things together, too.

For two days, we worked on our projects. The rest of the time, we explored Florida. We went to Universal Studios and visited Kennedy Space Center, where we saw how huge real rockets are, which was honestly pretty cool.

What I Worked On

At the start, we formed teams. I found two awesome teammates, and we picked a theme by each pulling a random word from a bowl.

Our words were black hole, countdown, and unknown entity.

Using that theme, we decided to make a game called “Blackaholic Rush.” It’s called that because of the black hole (and a lack of better ideas). I mostly worked on the coding side, helping turn our ideas into something that actually worked. It was fun building something together and figuring things out as we went.

It was kind of an escape-room game. You had to finish a maze and solve a puzzle to escape the unknown entity, all while racing against a countdown. We ended up winning second place, and we got a NASA lamp.

I also spent a lot of time talking to other Hack Clubbers about what they were making. Everyone’s projects were totally different, which made it really interesting to walk around and see what people came up with.

Outside of Coding

Some of my favorite moments weren’t even during hacking time. Going to Universal Studios with a group of people who all liked similar things was awesome.

Kennedy Space Center was another highlight. Seeing real rockets up close and learning how they were built made everything feel more real and exciting.

The hotel had three pools, and one of them was heated. It was really nice! We went in the pool every day with a lot of people.

By the end of the trip, it felt like I’d known these people for way longer than just a few days. We stayed up late, joked around, and built things together, which made the whole experience feel special.

Overall

Moonshot was a lot of fun, and it made me really glad I went. I made new friends, worked on a cool project, and got to be part of something with people who genuinely enjoy building things. It didn’t feel like a competition or a class. It just felt like a group of kids making things together.

It’s definitely an experience I won’t forget, and it made me even more excited to keep building things in the future.