Nearly 600 coders, designers and hackers raced around the clock to develop projects at this year's Brick-Hack Hack-a-thon at RIT.

Students from as far away as Boston and Toronto had 24 hours to develop programs, games, and apps aimed at solving world issues. They could use virtual reality and other resources to help them.

Organizers say sponsors like Datto and Google have big roles in the design process.

"Companies come to BrickHack and they give us their technology to our attendees and basically say, 'hey, what can you do with it? Can you combine it with other technology?' Make a project. Be creative," said organizer Christopher Baudouin Jr. 

Prizes ranged from Wegmans gift cards to $2,000 to help take the winning project to market.