Students from nine universities, full of caffeine and coding ideas, gathered at the Innovative Technologies Complex (ITC) at Binghamton University for 24 hours this weekend for the fourth annual HackBU Hackathon.

For the first time, the coding event was supported by the America East Academic Consortium, a subsidiary of the America East (AE) Conference. This allowed other schools from the AE Conference to participate, including University at Albany, Stony Brook University and University of Massachusetts Lowell.

Approximately 250 students packed into the ITC, working individually or with a group on their respective projects. While it sometimes receives a negative connotation, hacking refers to the ability to put together a project and write code to execute it. Done in the span of 24 hours, and amid others working on similar projects, the Hackathon provides a setting for students to create and execute new technological ideas.

The opening ceremony took place on Saturday and Juliette Kenny, the executive director of the consortium, spoke about how teaming up with HackBU provided a platform for displaying the importance of collaborative academics.

“Our goal is to have an overarching emphasis on elevating the academic profile of our universities, and we want to facilitate inter-institutional collaborative programs for students,” Kenny said. “The primary aim is to facilitate academic and administrative collaboration between students, faculty and staff across our nine campuses.”

Sponsors for the event, including BAE Systems, General Electric and IBM, had representatives at the Hackathon who served as resources for students, both in terms of providing feedback on projects and making themselves available for future job and internship opportunities.

Shortly after the hacking began, students were dispersed throughout the ITC — some finding a quiet space to work and others sitting with their teams. Energy drinks were provided for students, as many stayed awake throughout the entire night. BU student volunteers directed students around at the event and provided information to those who wanted to drop in for a short time.

Noah Katz, a junior majoring in computer engineering, said he had participated in Hackathons before. This time he was working with friends on a project that would use the Amazon Echo to take a security screenshot from a computer webcam in order to detect changes in the number of people in a room. The purpose of the development was to explore the various utilities for the Amazon Echo and repurpose it as a security device.

By the end of the 24-hour period, his team completed the web design for the program. Katz said that the Hackathon provided a platform for utilizing skills he had only been familiar with in the classroom.

“It definitely helps you learn how to actually apply what you’ve learned in class, because in class you are doing projects and you’ll do something that the teacher wants you to do,” Katz said. “But this lets you take something that you want to do and create it from start to finish in the span of a day.”

Other projects included a ride-sharing program to polling locations called Vote with Friends and an app called Candidates, which informed people about elections. At the end of the competition, each team presented their projects to a panel of judges, made up of BU professors and engineers from the various sponsors, and “Codiggity,” a rap lyric-generating machine, was chosen as the winner.

Erik Langert, the director of HackBU and a senior double-majoring in computer science and mathematics, spoke about the way in which the setting of the Hackathon cultivates learning and creativity.

“It’s an absolutely incredible learning experience,” Langert said. “You are surrounded by all these technically talented people who are a great resource to learn new things. There is just a culture — staying up all night and working on stuff — that you don’t get to experience anywhere else.”