Drones, virtual reality headsets, smart watches and more were the subjects of experiments during the weekend at Wells Hall as the hacking and coding marathon at MSU sponsored by Major League Hacking ­— called SpartaHack — meant to give students at MSU a chance to solve real-world problems with their own self-made technologies.

While many of the students were not hacking in the conventional sense, they were working to code and create new software.

More than 300 students participated in the 36-hour hackathon and roughly 40 percent of students were first-time hackers, an exciting sign for future hackathons, executive director of the event Caitlin McDonald said.

Participants came from around the country and the state with varying disciplines, from computer science to environmental science.

The students competed in teams of up to four to create a form of technology to solve a specific real-world problem assigned to them.

The teams are then judged at the end of the weekend by a series of judges from the technology industry.

The winning teams are awarded Major League Hacking points which can boost their school in the standings.

One team was working on a way to make Oculus Rift, a virtual reality headset for 3-D gaming, more user-friendly by allowing the user to detect the dimensions of objects just by focusing their attention on them.

“We’re trying to make it so Oculus (Rift) can be more functional, and possibly even used for educational purposes,” one of the team members and computer science junior Sam Macaluso said.

Another team attempted to create an app that could improve users’ experience with smart watches.

A separate team attempted to code for apps that could improve the flight of drones and decrease the amount of crashes that might occur.

Aside from the competitive aspect of the hackathon, students saw it as a chance to gain insight from industry sponsors who attended the event, such as Firebase, Interactive Intelligence, Venmo and more.

“Being exposed to professionals in the field and other students who are experienced helps us grow our tech skills outside of the classroom,” computer science senior Joe Dinkha said.

The event also hosted numerous speakers on a wide range of different topics such as effectively testing a cloud platform to the foundations of hacking.

McDonald said she saw this year’s event as a total success and said she was excited for more to come at MSU.

To see a video of the hackers in action, go to statenews.com.