A 24-hour hackathon sponsored by several university groups happened over the weekend of Jan. 18 inside the Erb Memorial Union’s Redwood Auditorium.

The event had over 100 participants and 22 projects submitted in total.

From Jan.18 at noon to Jan.19 at noon, teams of students set to work on various digital projects. The event was open to all students over 18 of any experience level and was not limited to University of Oregon students. 

Examples of hacking projects include: app development, artificial intelligence models, automation, game development, web design and blockchain.

Projects had to be started after the initial opening ceremony and could not be previously started projects. Teams were allowed to use libraries, frameworks or open-source code.

Students could stay in the auditorium for the duration of the hackathon but were also permitted to leave and come back. Breakfast, lunch and dinner were provided on the first day, and breakfast and lunch on the second day.

The opening speaker for the event was Fedi Aniefuna, a UO alumnus and current software engineer at Amazon Web Services. 

Finished projects were submitted and presented on Sunday, “science fair style,” according to the QuackHacks website. 

The winning project was a system for mining professional reference and job finding by Team Alumno. Second place was an AI Pictionary game by Team Promptly Puzzled, and third place was a machine-learning model that predicts National Basketball Association games by Team Beat The Odds.

The event was entirely student-run, with sponsors that included the Associated Students of the University of Oregon, the UO School of Computer and Data Sciences, the AI Student Association and LeetClub.

In October, QuackHacks hosted a “mini-hackathon” to test audiences and interest. There were 150 participants and over 30 projects.

Noah Weis, event coordinator for the hackathon, said the event was about learning, taking risks and exploring new challenges.

“(It’s all about) pushing yourself to make something pretty cool regardless of what skill level you’re at,” Weis said. “Everyone in there is learning how to do things hands-on.”

QuackHacks Director of Marketing, Jaya Muñoz, said pushing for a beginner friendly space was essential to get people to attend.

“It is beginner friendly and (welcome to) all majors. You don’t need the background,” Muñoz said. “The only thing we really needed is people who are passionate, dedicated and willing to create.”

For future events, Muñoz said that they would like to have more event support and even more beginners attending the event. Weis said that he would like to increase the number of both attendees and staff.

“Looking forward, (the goal) is (to) make it bigger,” Weis said. “We’re constantly recruiting people who are interested in running hackathons. And it’s growing our event from 100 to hopefully 200 people next year.”

Weis also said that as the event increases in size, it should increase in quality too. He said that the off-season is the time they take to grow their team and increase the organization to put on more of these hackathon events.

“It should feel like a premiere experience,” Weis said.