The Palo Alto Student hackathon will take place for the second consecutive year from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday at Palo Alto High School.

The event, which will take place in the Robotics Lab (room 903), brings together student programmers, designers and other interested students in groups to develop apps, websites and other projects based on a common theme. The event is being organized by Paly senior Max Bernstein and Gunn High School senior Trevor Nielsen.

“Last year the aim of the hackathon was to create an environment where kids from around Palo Alto could experiment with new technologies and meet teens with similar interests,” Nielsen said. “We exceeded our expectations for that event, but we thought that we could do even better. This year we are touting a bigger venue, more sponsors, guest speakers, and a more focused theme.”

This year, students may solve a puzzle to uncover the theme, or wait until the day of the competition when it is announced to the public, according to Bernstein. The theme of last year’s hackathon, which took place at Gunn, was “sharing is caring.”

There will be a guest speaker from GitHub in the Social Studies Resource Center, and DigitalOcean, a New York-based site, will also be donating servers to the participating students, according to Bernstein.

The hackathon will be in the Social Studies Resource Center from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. because the Robotics team will be using the Lab.

Nielsen is looking forward to the event after a successful launch last year.

“Last year’s hackathon was amazing because not everybody who attended was comfortable with programming,” Nielsen said. “We got to see kids who came in doubtful that they would even stay an hour staying until the very end to put the finishing touches on their project.”

“I can’t wait to see what people come up with this weekend,” Nielsen added.