Hi! I’m
Lachlan Campbell.

While students on the coasts have dozens of hackathon events a year, Pennsylvania had none—until Hack Happy Valley! I founded & led Pennsylvania’s first high school hackathon, which ran June 2018. I’m now organizing Hack Pennsylvania, a 200+ person slated for next January, with a team of 6.

Our Congresspeople receive a shocking amount of fossil fuel funding – nearly $14 million just in 2016. Fossil Funded is a website I designed and built to make this information broadly available. Type in your address, and immediately see fossil fuel funding of your Representative in 2016, plus easy buttons to contact them by phone, letter, website, & Twitter.

The site includes some analysis of the data, including the top contributors, the maximum recipient, the sum of contributions, and the gender and party biases of the funding companies.

Technologies: Node.js, React.js, styled-components

Blink is a communication tool for those who cannot speak or move, while being significantly more flexible, affordable, and accurate than current technologies on the market. Competitors cost $10,000+, but Blink costs less than $20 to build.

To use it, physically blink letters in Morse code, and in real time caretakers can see the message from a phone. It’s a small, unobtrusive, wearable sensor.

This project was a 3-person collaboration built in 36 hours at PennApps XVI. I built & designed the web/mobile apps & branding. We won Most Unique Hack ($1k grant from 1517) & the Health category.

Technologies: React.js, Next.js, styled-components

Noodles, my first app, is a simple library for all your recipes. Import recipes from around the web, write your own, publish and share them. It won the Congressional App Challenge 2015 for PA-05.

Technologies: Ruby on Rails, jQuery, React.js, SCSS

Check out the designSee the design process

After the 2016 election, I worked on this project for a weekend with some friends. It lets you call your Congressperson with one tap.

This really resonated after the election—we got over 21,000 visitors in the first 24 hours, and features on TechCrunch, Lifehacker, & Bloomberg.

My high school has taught me essentially no sex ed, so there’s a significant need for education. This past summer, I worked with my local Planned Parenthood organizer to illustrate & design a comprehensive introductory zine aimed at 13–23-year-olds. I designed the layouts, diagrams, typography, contributed an essay, built the website, and created marketing materials. Beyond the zine itself, I also helped start a new Planned Parenthood sex ed class and organize a recent Trans Day of Solidarity event.

Technologies: Figma, React.js, Next.js, styled-jsx

I founded the local Hack Club at my high school 2.5 years ago, and continue to lead it. We’re an inclusive, creative space for everyone, focused on teaching coding. Well over a hundred students have built and published their first websites on their first day.

Since fourth grade, I’ve been training weekly in taekwondo at Chaar Martial Arts here in State College. I practice forms, self-defense, board-breaking, and sparring. In Spring 2017, I tested for and was promoted to first-dan black belt, as certified by the Kukkiwon.

The TeenShale Network is a group of students at my high school working with researchers at Pennsylvania State University to monitor local water quality in relation to fracking in the Marcellus Shale region. We’re funded by grants, including from the NSF, and I’ve been an active member for four years, doing original field research, teaching new members, designing scientific posters and marketing materials, and presenting at a number of professional scientific conferences, including the 2017 Geological Society of America’s Regional Conference in Pittsburgh.

I’m an active member of BYOQ, the youth group of a local nonprofit, the Centre LGBTQ+ Support Network. We provide a safe space for queer, trans, and allied youth of all kinds, do social/community work, and promote inclusivity.

Beyond attending the group, I’ve gotten involved organizing the second annual Youth Summit, an upcoming all-day event for queer youth in December.

In previous years I have been an active member, but this year I’m a co-leader of the LGBTQA+ Alliance at my high school. We work to promote a fully inclusive and accepting local community, at the school and beyond, via staff trainings, political action, and social engagement, as well as providing a biweekly forum and support space for all students.

Last spring, I led a campaign (50+ active hours) to open gender-neutral bathrooms for all students at my school, including petitioning, meeting with school administration and school board members, and getting mentorship from a Planned Parenthood organizer.

Watch my first school board speech (start at 9:00):

Summer 2017, I attended RISD’s Pre-College program, majoring in Industrial Design. Over 6 weeks living in Providence, I designed dozens of projects. Here’s a chair I designed out of only two sheets of cardboard, fully collapsible & recyclable with no fasteners.

In the summer of 2015, I was hired as a remote intern at Highrise, a multimillion-dollar online software company based in Chicago. Working for Highrise, I designed, built, and tested new features for their central application, increasing transparency and improving the collaboration tools in a legacy technical architecture.