Real HTML, CSS, JavaScript, real APIs, real tests. No drag-and-drop. No toy syntax. By project three, a tool you built sits at a real URL and survives a week of use.
Most "code for kids" platforms hand you a sandbox. You drag blocks, things light up, you get a sticker. None of it survives outside the platform.
Code Club refuses that. You write HTML, CSS, and JavaScript the way real engineers do — in plain text files that any browser opens. You deploy to a real URL. You call the Claude API from your own JavaScript. You write tests that fail before you fix the bug. The tool you build can be opened by anyone with the link, on any computer.
You're allowed to use Claude the entire time. The rule is just: the part of the project that's only you must be visibly only you.
If Claude wrote 90% of the code, fine — but the choice of what to build, who to build it for, and which version to ship has to be yours. By project three, you'll know how to tell when AI is making the project worse and when it's making it better. That's a skill almost no professional developer has yet figured out.
HTML structure, CSS that doesn't look like a 1996 GeoCities page, JavaScript that does something real. Deployed to a public URL by the end of the project. Built for one person you can name.
You ship → a public URL + the page does something useful + the named person has used it.
Add real intelligence to your page. Parse JSON. Call the Claude API from JavaScript. Handle errors gracefully. Stream responses. Don't leak your API key. The tool now does something neither you nor Claude alone could do.
You ship → a Claude-powered tool + a real demo session + a one-paragraph note on what AI made better and what it made worse.
Write tests. Cover the edge cases. Add error states. Make it accessible. Hand the tool to the person you built it for and let them use it for a week without you. Notice what breaks, what they don't understand, what they wish for. Fix three things.
You ship → tested code + 1 week of usage + 3 fixes you made because of real feedback.
A live URL of a tool you built that another human depends on. Tests. Real usage data — informal, but real. The reflexes of a professional engineer, in a 16-year-old. Most working developers don't ship at this quality bar. Yours will.