A Georgia Institute of Technology student turned himself in Tuesday and confessed responsibility for an explosion on campus originally reported as a possible "terrorist act," based on comments made by an Atlanta Police Department official.

The explosion occurred Monday morning, when a Georgia Tech maintenance worker picked up a two-liter soda bottle, which exploded in his hand. He was treated and released from the hospital later in the day with only minor injuries.

Georgia Tech Police Department spokesperson Amelia Gambino said the student, an 18-year-old freshman engineering major from Pennsylvania, threw at least three bottles from his residence-hall window sometime last weekend before one detonated Monday morning.

"It was [Tuesday] morning that he confessed to the Georgia Tech police officers that he'd been building explosives and he threw them out the window of his residence hall," Gambino said. "They were thrown from the window in hopes of having them explode."

Although Georgia Tech is now handling the investigation, the maintenance worker originally contacted the APD bomb squad, which detonated the remaining bottles.

APD spokesperson Sylvia Abernathy distanced the department from comments originally made by a commander on the scene Monday morning of the explosion as a possible act of terrorism.

"We do not see this as an act of terrorism," Abernathy said. "I think you could characterize it as an irresponsible prank, [but] this was something that was taken seriously. Actions taken against him thus far show it was something that was serious."

Serious action has indeed been taken, as the student faces a felony charge of possession of a destructive device and a misdemeanor charge of reckless conduct, according to a statement posted on Georgia Tech's website late Tuesday.

"He is on interim suspension from the university and will go through the standard judiciary process," Gambino said.

According to Gambino, the student's name has yet to be released because the school is unsure of what can be released under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which limits the information a college can release about its students.

"That is the decision of Georgia Tech," Abernathy said. "I believe [they are withholding his name] because his family has not even been notified of what is going on."

It is still unclear what the bottles consisted of and exactly how they exploded, Gambino said, although based on a Tuesday morning interrogation with the suspect, she said they had no reason to believe chemicals were involved.

"Based on what he told us, we have no reason to believe that there [were] any [dangerous] chemicals in it at all," Gambino said. "Their big noise is about the extent of the damage that it could do."