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Programming Entertainment Games IT Technology

MIT Video Game Programming Competition in Java 21

Posted by Hemos from the the-joys-of-battle dept.
A reader writes:"252 MIT students are spending the month of January writing Java programs to control virtual robots in a videogame environment called Robocraft. These virtual robots will battle each other for cash prizes in a tournament to see who can write the best Robocraft player. The competition is being sponsored by top tech companies including Bank of America, Electronic Arts, BBN, Schlumberger, Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Oracle. Only MIT students are eligible to compete, but anyone can read the specs, download the software, and program their own virtual robot using the Robocraft API."
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MIT Video Game Programming Competition in Java More

MIT Video Game Programming Competition in Java

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  • Sounds like that UK TV show, Robot Wars [www.five.tv].
  • We have a 'similar' thing run here at the University of York UK, but instead of making robots fight we are designing Othello AI. And MIT prize funds of $13,000, i think i want to be sick.

  • Robocode (Score:3, Informative)

    by Tr0mBoNe- ( 708581 ) on Monday January 17, 2005 @09:20AM (#11384879) Homepage Journal
    this sounds like Robocode [ibm.com] from IBM, http://www.robocode.net has a large following. We used this in my 1st year as a programming project. My friend's was powerful... it would learn you and never loose.

    it's not hard to do. There is a set API, and everything is there. It's like lego,... which makes it fun too.

  • Bytecode Clock (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dolmen.fr ( 583400 ) on Monday January 17, 2005 @10:42AM (#11385549) Homepage
    One particular feature of the game rules is that time is measured by counting executed bytecodes [mit.edu]. So we can expect that contestants will aim to produce very efficient code.

    Do you know any Java compiler benchmark that compares generated bytecode?
  • IBM's robocode [ibm.com] is the same deal. IBM has a great tutorial introduction, teaching Java through the application of these interfaces.

    I am of course happy to see more of such programs, and with the MIT name behind it, perhaps it will inspire some perl hackers to get involved in *duck* a *duck* real *duck* programming *duck, ouch* language.... :-)

    I love the way these robot challenges express the ideas of OO so well! I am entering my 32.6mb robot which has enhanced path finding, fuzzy logic, target identificati
  • This isn't really new in any way. MIT has been doing this every January for the past few years.

    They've also been doing a lego robotics competition [mit.edu] every January as well. This involves electronics (for sensors), programming (robots need to be autonomous), and "mechanical" design (building the actual bot out of legos!).
    • If they really want to make the game worthwhile, why not license an engine through Id Software and use a cheaper quake3 renderer to program a game. Writing a java game isn't going to get it much acceptance. MIT just don't know how to use student's time. They mind as well have them write an ascii game in Perl.

      • I disagree. I don't think that the point of the assignment is totally game related, it's just one way to use java. Although using a game specific language may be "cooler", using java makes more sense in the usefulness category.

        Assuming these students all go on to graduate, I would assume a great many of them who end up programming would be using a language such as java versus a very small percentage actually programming using a game specific language.

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