// A Hack Club YSWS by sami9889
Everyone's shipping 500KB of JavaScript just to show some text on a page. Build something under 10KB, no frameworks, no React, no Tailwind. If it passes my review, I'll mail you a parcel from Australia.
I'm Sami from Hack Club Slack. This is my You Ship, We Ship challenge. Build something small, ship it somewhere public, and if it's good enough I'll send you a parcel from Australia.
Raw potatoes don't survive customs. Stickers, snacks, and a real airmail postcard do. The smaller you build, the better the parcel gets.
You build it, I pack it, Australia Post does the rest.
Build something small with plain HTML, CSS, and JS. Size matters, but it's not everything - I review every submission myself for quality, originality, and genuine effort.
Fonts and CDN scripts like Google Fonts don't count toward your size limit, but that exemption is just for decoration and styling. Your actual app or game logic has to be your own code, and it counts. That's the size of your real files as they sit on disk, not a gzipped or minified-then-measured number. A blank page, a "hello world" print, or an unmodified starter template doesn't qualify, no matter how small it is.
| Rule | Standard (<10KB) | Hard Mode (<3KB) | Ultra Hard (<1KB) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Frameworks (React, Vue, etc.) | Not allowed | Not allowed | Not allowed |
| CSS libraries (Tailwind, Bootstrap) | Not allowed | Not allowed | Not allowed |
| Build tools / bundlers | Not allowed | Not allowed | Not allowed |
| Vanilla HTML + CSS + JS | Allowed | Allowed | Allowed |
| Total size counted across all your files combined | Applies | Applies | Applies |
| Splitting code across many files to dodge the total | Not allowed | Not allowed | Not allowed |
| External fonts & CDN scripts (styling/decoration only) | Allowed (don't count) | Allowed (don't count) | Allowed (don't count) |
| Loading your actual app/game logic from a CDN | Not allowed | Not allowed | Not allowed |
| Iframing in a separately hosted app to dodge the limit | Not allowed | Not allowed | Not allowed |
| Real logic lives on your own server, page is just a shell | Not allowed | Not allowed | Not allowed |
| Must be live with a public URL | Required | Required | Required |
| Source code must be public | Required | Required | Required |
| Must actually do something | Required | Required | Required |
| Must be a complete, functional project | Required | Required | Required |
| Must demonstrate original design and interaction | Required | Required | Required |
| Judges' Pick: not every passing submission gets a parcel - ranked by originality, completeness, and execution; top ~50% per tier receive the full package | Applies | Applies | Applies |
| Copy-paste tutorials and unmodified starter templates | Not eligible | Not eligible | Not eligible |
| Near-duplicate or trivially similar resubmissions | Not eligible | Not eligible | Not eligible |
| Blank pages / "hello world" only | Not eligible | Not eligible | Not eligible |
| Unmodified starter template or boilerplate | Not eligible | Not eligible | Not eligible |
| Someone else's project submitted as your own | Not eligible | Not eligible | Not eligible |
| Using AI to help debug or fix a specific issue | Allowed | Allowed | Allowed |
| Using AI to generate your core app/game logic | Not allowed | Not allowed | Not allowed |
| Minified or hand-golfed code | Allowed | Allowed | Allowed |
| Near-duplicate resubmissions to farm extra parcels | Not eligible | Not eligible | Not eligible |
| Potato theme | Bonus points | Bonus points | Bonus points |
I look at every submission myself. Templates, boilerplate, iframe tricks, backend-offloaded logic, empty joke entries, and stuff that's clearly copied from a tutorial get skipped, no exceptions. One parcel per person per project.
These get mailed to you from Melbourne. Three tiers, each one builds on the last. Not everyone who qualifies gets the full parcel - I review each submission myself and rank them by originality, completeness, and execution. Top half per tier gets everything; the rest get a public shoutout.
Standard Mode
<10KB
Hard Mode
<3KB
Ultra Hard Mode
<1KB
A site, game, tool, anything that runs in a browser. Under 10KB. Potato theme is a nice touch but not required.
GitHub Pages, Netlify, Vercel, Hack Club Nest, anywhere with a public URL.
Drop your live link and repo in #ship on Hack Club Slack. Tag @sami9889.
I'll check it and post your reward from Australia.
Drop your link in #ship and tag @sami9889. That's all there is to it.
Open #ship →All your files: HTML, CSS, JS, images. External stuff loaded from CDNs like Google Fonts doesn't count, but keep the spirit of it. The point is to show you don't need a million dependencies.
No. It has to actually do something, even something tiny: a game, a tool, a toy, an experiment. That also rules out unmodified starter templates like the default Vite page or create-react-app splash, and logic loaded from a CDN just to dodge the size limit. Under 10KB is the challenge, not "under 1 line." I check every submission myself.
For debugging and fixing a specific issue, sure. For generating your actual app or game logic all at once, no. The core idea and code need to be yours - that's the spirit of the challenge.
It needs to run in a browser: a site, game, tool, interactive thing. No native apps. Beyond that, build whatever you want.
A 1KB page built in 2 hours from a tutorial won't pass review. It needs to be something you actually designed and built: a game with original mechanics, a tool that solves a real problem, an experiment with your own ideas. Copy-paste tutorials, unmodified starter templates, and trivially similar clones of existing projects don't qualify.
By me, not just by size. Every submission is checked for completeness, originality, and genuine effort. Size is the starting line, not the finish line. If it looks like a tutorial output, a stub, or a template, it won't pass.
No, but it earns bonus points.
Yes. Potatoes only show up in Ultra Hard Mode. Everyone else gets stickers, a postcard, snacks, and whatever else fits in the envelope that week. On top of that, only the top-ranked submissions per tier receive the full physical parcel - the rest get a public shoutout and recognition on the site.
It's coming from Australia so a few weeks depending on your country. It will arrive.
A global nonprofit network of student coding clubs and a Slack for teenage hackers. Free to join at hackclub.com.