What can you create in a 36-hour hackathon? Here’s what students built.

To the tapping of keyboards, Sneha Patel fell asleep under a table in the basement of Marston Science Library Friday night.

The UF computer science freshman wasn’t cramming for a big exam or racing to finish an essay. She was one of more than 500 students who participated in a 36-hour hackathon.

“I realized that I could not sleep for so many hours,” the 17-year-old said. “I didn’t believe that.”

The fourth annual SwampHacks attracted 532 students from schools around the Southeast to develop programs from scratch, attend workshops and meet new people, said co-organizer Chandler Griffin, a 20-year-old UF computer science junior. This year’s hackathon also included Swamp Tank, an opportunity for professionals in the computer science field to mentor participants. Students could work to win prizes and internships from SwampHacks’ sponsors including Facebook, Microsoft and RealTruck, or just explore their interest in computer science.

“Each year we’re just trying to create more of an environment for not only computer science students but also non-computer science students and engage them in this type of world that’s just constantly growing,” he said.

Edwin Carvajal, a 20-year-old UF computer engineering junior, made a mad dash for a spacious table with plenty of outlets when the hackathon began Friday, he said.

He worked until 4 a.m. Saturday developing a program that stores data in a decentralized way, which would make it more difficult for personal information to be stolen, he said. The weekend of uninterrupted coding gave people the opportunity to create something groundbreaking, Carvajal said.

“This really creates, like, a hub for spontaneous growth and creativity,” he said.

Jeremiah Lantzer, a software engineering junior at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, and his three teammates walked away as first-place winners for their program Wi-Fido, an app that can recognize security breaches in home internet services.

If the app finds a certain device is transferring significant amounts of data outside of the home, it shuts down its connection and gives users the option to block the device, he said.

“It’s really a way for the user to take control of their own cyber security rather than letting somebody else do it for them,” the 20-year-old said.

The team won Echo Shows and Xbox Ones for developing the program, but developing something that could help others was the most rewarding part of the experience, he said.

“Every now and then you build a hackathon project that just feels really good,” he said. “Something like this, if it were ever to be released, could really help a lot of people.”

Contact Jessica Giles at jgiles@alligator.org. Follow her on Twitter at @jessica_giles_.

Students play musical chairs during a break from a 36-hour hackathon this weekend. The fourth annual SwampHacks, which started on Friday, brought 532 tech-savvy students from schools around the Southeast to Marston Science Library to create computer programs, win prizes and attend workshops.