Hack Club YSWS · You Ship, We Ship
MAKE
SOME
NOISE.
Build something that generates sound through code. We'll ship you something that makes even more of it.
click anywhere on the wave · it plays
What is Wavelength
Audio is the one medium we haven't touched.
Every YSWS in the catalog is visual, tactile, or pure logic. Nothing makes noise. Wavelength fixes that. Write a synthesizer, beat machine, pitch detector, generative music engine, audio game — anything that produces or processes sound through code you wrote. Ship it. We ship back.
✓Your code IS the engine — Web Audio API, Tone.js, SuperCollider, Pure Data
✓MIDI generation, DSP pipelines, synthesis from scratch, real-time audio analysis
✓Delete test: remove all audio files → still makes sound? You're in.
✓Any language — JS, Python, Rust, C, SuperCollider, even terminal buzzes
✗An <audio src="song.mp3"> player or Spotify / YouTube wrapper
✗Audio as decoration — it must be the whole point of the project
Reward tiers
You ship. We ship back.
Hours tracked automatically by Hackatime. A shipwright verifies within 48 hours.
Tier 01 · Signal
3
hours tracked
Piezo Starter Kit
Piezo buzzer, breadboard, jumper wires, microcontroller. Your first physical noise-maker. Ships anywhere cheaply.
sweet spot
Tier 02 · Frequency
6
hours + live demo
Teenage Engineering Pocket Operator
Real synth + sequencer, 16-step, built-in speaker, effects chain. The natural next instrument after building one in code.
Tier 03 · Amplitude
10
hours + synthesis engine
Arturia MiniLab MIDI Controller
25 keys, 16 pads, endless encoders. Plays every DAW and every software synth — including the one you just built.
How it works
Six steps from idea to shipped.
Step 01
Join #wavelength on Slack
Introduce yourself and the sound you want to make. Get ideas, feedback, find collaborators. Share early and often — the community loves WIPs.
hackclub.com/slack
Step 02
Build with Hackatime tracking
Hours are counted automatically — no manual logging, no honesty system. It tracks itself as you code in your editor.
hackatime.hackclub.com
Step 03
Ship a live demo
Deploy anywhere — GitHub Pages, Vercel, Railway, self-hosted. Terminal-only project? A 30-second video is fine.
Step 04
Open a PR to the gallery
Repo link, demo link, and one sentence describing how the sound is generated. That sentence tells us you understand what you built.
Step 05
Shipwright runs the delete test
"Remove all audio files — does it still make sound?" Yes = approved. They verify your Hackatime hours and check the demo is live. 48hr turnaround.
Step 06
We ship.
Submit your address via the form. Your reward ships within 2 weeks, anywhere in the world. Your project joins the public Wavelength gallery.
Inspiration
What could you build?
Anything that makes sound through code you wrote. Here's a starting point — the best submissions will be weirder than any of these.
Browser synthesizer
Every knob changes an oscillator in real time. Filter, envelope, detune — all Web Audio API, no samples.
Synthesis
Commit history music
GitHub commits → notes, tempo, timbre. Map diff size and time-of-day to sound parameters.
Generative
Sample-free drum machine
16-step sequencer. Kick from a sine sweep, snare from filtered noise and exponential decay.
Synthesis
Hum to sheet music
Mic → real-time pitch detection → music notation. You sing it, it writes it.
Analysis
Audio-only game
No visuals at all. Spatial audio, pitch cues, rhythm as mechanics. Blindfold required.
Game
Browser pedalboard
Mic → delay → reverb → distortion → out. Every node built from scratch, zero plugin APIs.
Processing
Ready to make
some noise?
Join #wavelength on Hack Club Slack. Free. Open to teenagers worldwide.
hackclub.com/slack →