The program is broken into two parts. The first is a three month walk-in Tutorial Program modeled on hackerschool.com, that will provide students with a crash course in the basic skills needed to learn programing and linux based systems as well as the communication skills needed for student to participate in the global online development communities that provide support for beginners and masters alike. The second part will be a six month Apprentice Program where students will be paired with masters who will mentor them and work with them on projects in the Skunkworks. Students graduating from the apprentice program will have a portfolio of work they can use to get jobs, as well as being eligible to apply the Incubator program if they want to start their own companies.

The Sabbatical Program is broken into three parts. First, is a volunteer program for high tech professionals living near to the studyhall to volunteer to tudor and mentor students in the tutorial program. Second will be a Gap Year program where international students with technical experience can live and work in the Studyhall for anywhere from a week to several months. Gap year volunteers will help with students in both the tutorial and apprentice students as well as work with students and masters on projects in the skunk works. Finally, a sabbatical program will invite masters from academia and the corporate to live and work at the study hall for 2 weeks to three months. Masters will be on paid leave from their jobs, to collaborate on projects in the Skunk Works.

A Skunk Works is typically a division or department set up in a company that is allowed to work on advanced research or development independently from the corporate hierarchy. Skunk works are known for developing innovative and cutting edge products that would have been difficult or impossible through normal channels in a company or government. A Studyhall Skunk Works will take on important problems that either is not being addressed, or can't be done within traditional research or commercial. The hardware designs and software that the Skunk Works develops will be released to the public domain under an open source licence so it can be freely used by individuals, government, industry and universities.

At the heart of every Studyhall will be a computer cluster (a group of computers that act as a single very powerful computer). The cluster will run the OpenStack Cloud computing application. This will provide everyone within the studyhall (students and masters alike) with a very powerful tool for doing advanced research and development. The cluster will include everything needed for doing large computational processing jobs as well as massive amounts of archival storage.

The Fab Lab (named after its very well funded counterpart at MIT) is a hardware laboratory that has computer controlled tool for fabricating physical objects as well as develop electronics. The Lab will include 3D Printers, CNC Milling machines, laser cutters and other more traditional tools. Students will learn to design 3D models that can then be printed or milled into real objects. The Lab will also have Arduino boards and Raspberry Pi's that students can use to build everything from robots to home electronic products.

The Scan Lab is a facility to convert any kind of information or media on analog media (paper, film, tape, disk etc) into native digital formats. The Lab will include book scanners, video capture converters, flatbed scanners, video and audio editing workstations as well as OCR (optical character readers), proofreading, cataloging software systems.

The incubator program will be a early stage startup incubator similar to Y-Combinator. Students who have graduted from the apprenticeship program have the option of forming a team and apply for angel investment to start their own company. Successful applicants will recieve enough money to found a company, and develop a demonstration of a product or service. When the demo is ready, the incubator will arange a demo day for the startup to show their demo to Venture Capitalists to raise a large first round of investment funding for their venture.

The Studyhall Store (as well as the tutorial center) was inspired by 826 Valencia's Pirate Supply store:

Named after our street location in the Mission District of San Francisco, 826 Valencia was founded in 2002 by educator Nínive Calegari and author Dave Eggers, who were looking for a way to support overburdened teachers and connect talented working adults with the students who could use their help the most.

Because our space was zoned for retail, we needed to open a store. After briefly considering a hot dog stand, we looked at the ship-like surfaces of the stripped-down space, a former gym, and decided to open a pirate store instead.

Behind the store we built a writing lab, designed to be a place kids would want to spend time, with a cozy reading tent, big work tables, and lots of books. Word spread quickly, and soon every chair was filled with students working on their writing with our trained tutors. We currently serve over 6,000 students a year thanks to our corps of over 1,700 volunteers. Inspired by the success of 826 Valencia, seven more 826 chapters have opened in cities across the country; New York, Chicago, Ann Arbor, Seattle, Los Angeles, Boston, and Washington, D.C. are all home to a unique branch of 826.

– Valencia 826

The Pirate Store, "San Francisco's Only Inpedent Pirate Supply Store", "provides everything for the working buccaneer". The shop sells wooden peg legs, eye patches, belly of the whale escape kits and a variety of pirate related goods.

All of the Valencia 826 tutorial centers have their own distinct stores. One shop in Los Angeles is a Mini Mart for Time Travelers, in New York there is a Superhero Supply Shop, and in New Hampshire there is a Big Foot Research Institute.

Studyhall Stores will work the same way, as a fun and whimsical interface between the other parts of the Studyhall and the public.