An app for geographic exploration, software for stock trading and a flying device for coffee delivery are just some of the few examples of the 200 projects taking place during this year’s HackIllinois.

Adam Barbato, a computer science major, joined this year’s HackIllinios with three other teammates. They are placed in the hardware category and working on a flying device, called “RoBarista,” which aims to deliver coffee by remote control.

“I put some coffee onto the croc-copter, which will fly to the coffee table. And then I give it a command, it will pour the coffee into customer’s cup and then return to me,” Barbato said. “We have some challenges to overcome in the remaining hours, but we hope we can make it and gain some prizes.”

The competition started at 10 p.m. Friday and will end at 10 a.m. Sunday. Contestants must finish all the design, develop and experiment work within 36 hours. To save time, most of the contestants choose to sleep in the hacking room, however many only sleep for a few hours.

“You don’t want to leave your hacking room since your time is extremely limited,” said Charles Chamberlain, a student from the University of Chicago. “I brought a sleep bag with me and actually used it last night. It’s just two nights, so I don’t really worry about it. And it’s always good to be with your teammates.”

This year, nine buses brought students from all over the country to the University for the event. All travel expenses were covered by HackIllinois.

The committee, in corporation with all the sponsors, also provides three meals a day to all contestants throughout the weekend. Each contestant was given a nametag with a barcode on it while checking in. By scanning the barcode, students can enjoy the free food.

“I had a really good time here. Everything is free and nice, we even have bus to pick us up, which had provided us a lot of convenience,” said Cameron Heskett, student in computer science at Purdue University. “We don’t look forward to win special prizes, we just want to do our own thing and enjoy the time.”

More than 2,500 students applied for this year’s HackIllinois, and around 900 hackers attended. Preparation began in July 2014 and more than 60 staff members and 225 volunteers participated.

“The goal of HackIllinois is to really ensure that everyone who attends, hackers, staffs, volunteers, sponsors have a great time and really positive experience here,” said Nathan Handler, event co-director. “We feel like it’s best to include a huge variety of people of all different schools, skill levels and backgrounds. That’s why we randomly picked around 1,000 hackers from the applications.”

Since a lot of hackers are working late at night, HackIllinois organized many activities to help students release stress. The therapy dogs visited the Electrical & Computer Engineering Building Saturday afternoon, and a snowball fight was held before midnight on Saturday. There was also a giant snow cone machine for hackers to make personalized desserts.

The expo and judging ceremony will be hosted at 12 p.m. in Illini Union Sunday, where the winner of HackIllinois 2015 will be revealed.

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