I'm in Austin and could not participate directly, but I think it is a good idea and you should try to do it. My advice would be to not spend money on servers a

I'm in Austin and could not participate directly, but I think it is a good idea and you should try to do it. My advice would be to not spend money on servers and computers. Hackers can find their own computers, and set up a cast-off as a server, etc. Internet, electricity, and space will be enough. There are a lot of potential drawbacks to this, and you should be aware of them so that you can handle them appropriately. It can be a distraction from your main, more important money-making activities. People you don't know can start wandering in and out at all hours and stuff might start to disappear. People with unpleasant personalities can start camping there and drive all the good apples away. Be on the lookout for things like that. Maybe have a paid membership with laminated cards to give them a sense of ownership and have them keep up the environment; there could be a free "candidate" level, because high school students won't have much money. A lot of projects such as this are awesome for a time while one core person, or maybe two or three people, are fanatical about it and they are also doing all the work. At some point the person who does 90 percent of the effort burns out, and the project collapses. Perhaps you should guard against this by making a strict time-and-money budget of what you will put into it, and accept the fact that it might not be as big and as cool as it could be, but be sure to preserve your own effort for a longer time.