1. Executive Summary
Project: Stylus Sorcery Academy
Reporting Period: March 2025 → May 2026
- Live platform: https://stylus.academy
- Source code: github.com/tolgayayci/stylus-academy
- Questbook application: Stylus Sorcery Academy on Questbook
Project summary
Stylus Sorcery Academy is an interactive, gamified learning platform that teaches Arbitrum Stylus development through a wizardry-themed narrative — functions are “spells,” contracts are “grimoires,” and learners progress from Apprentice to Archmage. The platform reimagines what CryptoZombies did for Solidity and applies it to Stylus, targeting three audiences: complete beginners, Solidity devs moving to Rust, and Web2 Rust devs new to blockchain.
The deliverable is a full three-course curriculum (12 modules, 50+ lessons, 150+ exercises) running on a split-pane web interface with an in-browser Rust editor and a containerized backend that compiles and executes Stylus code in real time.
Impact of the grant
The $20,000 grant covered the full cost of building the platform end-to-end as a solo project: design, frontend, backend sandbox, curriculum writing, and the gamification layer. Without this funding the Academy would not exist — there was no dedicated, interactive, gamified learning resource for Stylus before this, only reference documentation. The grant also enabled distribution: the Academy is now wired directly into Wizard (the Stylus Playground), so every developer who lands on Wizard sees the learning path next to the build path.
All four milestones were delivered. Every measurable KPI exceeded its target.
2. Performance Against KPIs
All three quantitative milestones over-delivered against the targets in the original proposal.
| KPI | Target | Actual |
|---|---|---|
| Registered users | 200 | 425 |
| Users completing first module | 100 | 147 |
| Badges awarded | 300 | 482 |
| Completion certificates issued | 20 | 23 |
Engagement breakdown — Module 1 funnel
Of the 425 registered users, the beginner course funnel looked like this:
| Lesson | Users finished |
|---|---|
| Lesson 1 (intro) | 147 |
| Lesson 2 (workspace setup) | 78 |
| Lesson 3 (Rust primitives) | 53 |
| Lesson 4 (first storage contract) | 37 |
23 users went all the way through the beginner course and were issued completion certificates (tiered as Excellence, Distinction, or Completion depending on pace). Each certificate is publicly verifiable via a unique URL, e.g. stylus.academy/certificate/29adbc99-5dcf-4671-aab0-3f8bd3e716b5 — no login or wallet required.
Platform deliverables
| Deliverable | Status |
|---|---|
| Web interface (split-pane, lesson + code) |  Live |
| In-browser Rust editor (Monaco, syntax highlighting) | Live |
| Backend compile/execute sandbox | Live |
| User accounts & progress tracking (Supabase) | Live |
| Course 1 — Stylus Foundations (4 modules, 18 lessons) | Complete |
| Course 2 — Intermediate Stylus (3 modules, 11 lessons) | Complete |
| Course 3 — Advanced Stylus (5 modules, 22 lessons) | Complete |
| Gamification (XP, 10 levels, 7 achievement badges) | Complete |
| Public verifiable certificates | Complete |
3. Qualitative Impact & Community Feedback
Most significant non-quantitative outcome
The Academy filled a real gap in the Stylus onboarding experience. Before launch, a developer curious about Stylus had two options: read the official reference docs, or jump into a code editor and figure it out. There was no structured, hands-on path from “I’ve heard of Stylus” to “I can ship a token contract.” The Academy is now that path, and it sits inside the Stylus tooling ecosystem rather than next to it.
The most meaningful outcome is the learn-then-build pipeline the Academy forms with Wizard. A developer who opens Wizard and realises they need SDK basics first clicks straight into the Academy, learns the fundamentals, and comes back to Wizard to build. That feedback loop is now wired into the default Stylus developer journey — and it didn’t exist before this grant.
Distribution and community channels
- Wizard (Stylus Playground): The Academy is linked from Wizard’s landing page and from inside the project view. The majority of M3 signups came through this channel. Wizard and the Academy now share a companion-tool relationship.
- Arbitrum Stylus official documentation: The Academy was listed as a learning resource on the Stylus page (which has since transitioned to stylusup.sh as the new Stylus entry point).
- Hackathons: Wizard has been featured at Stylus-track hackathons, and because the Academy is linked from inside Wizard, every participant who opens the playground at these events sees the Academy too. Free distribution at every Stylus event Wizard shows up at.
4. Financial Summary
As a solo developer working full-time across roughly two months of build and several months of growth and maintenance, the $20,000 grant covered design, frontend, backend, sandbox infrastructure, curriculum writing for all three courses, gamification, hosting, and post-launch maintenance.
5. Future Plans & Continued Ecosystem Alignment
No follow-up grant application is planned. The Academy is open-source, hosted, and maintained — and the goal from here is sustained presence inside the Stylus ecosystem rather than a fresh funding round.
Continued engagement
- Maintenance commitment: As promised in the original proposal, I’ll personally maintain the platform for at least 12 months post-launch — bug fixes, security updates, content corrections, and Rust/Stylus version bumps as the toolchain evolves.
- Deeper Wizard integration: The Academy will be promoted across more surfaces inside Wizard — project flow prompts, onboarding tips, contextual lesson banners — to keep the learn-then-build pipeline running and to push more developers through structured learning before they jump into building.
- Hackathon presence: Wizard continues to show up at Stylus-track hackathons, and the Academy rides along by default through the linked integration. Every event Wizard supports is free distribution for the Academy.
- Open-source contributions: The codebase and curriculum are public on GitHub with contribution guidelines. Pull requests for new modules, bug fixes, and lesson improvements are welcome.
6. Additional Remarks
The Academy is live and will stay live. If you’re a Stylus-curious developer reading this, the front door is stylus.academy.
Thank you to the committee for supporting Stylus Sorcery Academy and for backing developer education in the Arbitrum ecosystem. None of this would have been possible without the grant, and I’m grateful for the support placed in the project from day one.
— Tolga