Sorry, to install Spark you need an API key, which means you need a license.
I don't know any way around this - I looked because I wanted to do the exact same thing a while back.
IMHO I think It's totally worth it - you get so much out of the box! Also, I learned an awful lot by reading the code and deciding to switch to Vue 2 to build my most recent app - basically Spark and the Laacasts Vue 2 tutorials got me from 0->full speed ahead with Vue 2 - it's a small price to pay just to have this experience, never mind actually being able to use the code for your application as well ;)