Hack Club
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3Blue1Brown
Manimator
Animate a math idea in manim. Ship the video. We’ll mail you something back.
How it works
Three steps, one video. The hours you track decide what we send.
Pick an idea.
Anything you can explain with a picture: a proof, a pattern, a paradox, a physics trick. Stuck? Steal one from the examples below.
idea = Text("why 0.999… = 1")
Animate it in manim.
Open the web editor. Nothing to install. Write Python, render, watch, fix, render again. You don’t need to know manim yet.
self.play(Write(idea), run_time=PI)
Ship it.
Post the video and your code. A real person watches it, then we mail you something back.
self.ship(video, repo)
Things worth animating
Hover one to replay it. Take any of them for your first scene.
Odd numbers make squares
1 + 3 + 5 + 7 = 4². Each odd number is one more L wrapped around the square.
VGroup · LaggedStart · MathTex
Where sine comes from
Spin a point around a circle and trace its height. That’s the whole wave.
TracedPath · always_redraw
Euler’s identity
Five constants, one line. Show why turning by π lands you on −1.
MathTex · Write · Rotate
Pythagoras, rearranged
Slide four triangles around a square and a² + b² turns into c² in front of you.
Transform · Rotate · Polygon
Area under a curve
Thinner and thinner rectangles, until they stop being rectangles and become the integral.
get_riemann_rectangles · ValueTracker
Fourier epicycles
Circles riding on circles can draw any shape. Even your name.
Circle · always_redraw · TracedPath
Questions
What is manim?
The Python library Grant Sanderson wrote to animate 3Blue1Brown videos. We use the free, open-source Manim Community edition.
Who can join?
Anyone 18 or under, anywhere in the world. It’s free.
I’ve never written Python. Can I still do this?
Yes. A first scene is about ten lines. Get a circle on screen, then make it do something. People in the Slack will help you debug.
What counts as math?
Anything you can explain with a picture: proofs, patterns, probability, physics, algorithms, even the math inside a game you like.
How do my hours get counted?
The web editor tracks your time automatically while you work on your scene, so there’s nothing to set up.
What do I get?
Something real in the mail, picked from a list once you ship. More hours unlock bigger rewards. The full list is coming soon.
Where do I get help?
Ask in the Hack Club Slack. Someone there has hit your error before.