Scrapyard Sydney is a hardware oriented hackathon aimed at providing opportunities in tech for Sydney-based teens, a sector that has been severely under-represented to-date. This is a venture under Hack Club, a US-based 501(c)(3) non-profit specialising in supporting teens in the technology sector through initiatives like this one. Hack Club's overarching philosophy is supporting science & engineering education for high schoolers - helping young minds "go from 0 to 1" and push meaningful projects.

This satellite event is the second of it's kind, the first being Counterspell, occurring late November 2024. The particular unique aspect of these hackathons is that they are organised for teens, by teens. Our entire organisation team consists of high schoolers ranging from the age of 14 to 17, and we're motivated to create an impact. Given the noticeable success of Counterspell which successfully undertook simultaneous game-jams in 50+ cities worldwide, Scrapyard, shifting to a hardware-based format, aims to not mimic but out-shine Counterspell's success and create a ever-lasting impact on the lives of the participants.

This time, reflecting our shift to a hardware-focused format, we wish to delve deeper into the world of PCB's, Microcontrollers, 3D-printing, and overall mechatronics. This NFC-enabled PCB Badge serves as a core component of the event experience, involved in processes from signing-in, collecting our digital currency "Scraps", and ultimately voting on a final winning project. This PCB will not only improve the event experience for our participants, but will provide an opportunity to learn PCB design and fabrication through a workshop revolving around the PCB badges which will not only take participants through the basics of KiCad, but will also show them how to get their PCB's fabricated through PCBWay.

This PCB will work by acting as a NFC tag with a unique code which communicates with our purpose-designed and developed backend to manage each participant's data, allowing for a centralised system to manage attendance and award our digital currency which can later be redeemed to purchase meaningful tools like Raspberry Pi's and Breadboarding equipment to further advance their future projects.

We ask that you please support us in making this venture into educating the next-generation of minds a worthwhile and impactful one. PCBWay has personally helped in transforming our ideas into reality, and all we wish to do is carry on that knowledge to more teens around Sydney, and across the globe.

• Hack Club
• Hackathon
• Scrapyard
• PCB
• NFC