12th annual TreeHacks awards $500,000 in prizes

At 2 p.m. on Saturday, the basement of the Jen-Hsun Huang Engineering Center was humming with activity. Hackers bent over computer screens of code at long tables littered with empty energy drink cans, wires and spare parts. At times, an authoritative undergraduate circulated with a megaphone, announcing that participants could pet llamas outside or attend a fireside chat with Google representatives. Meanwhile, companies from OpenAI to Logitech tabled at the perimeter of the space, answering questions from tech industry hopefuls.