Battlecode Information

Now in its 16th year, Battlecode is MIT's longest running programming competition. It features a unique challenge that combines battle strategy, software engineering and artificial intelligence. In short, the objective is to write the best AI player program for the strategy game Battlecode. Anyone can participate, as long as you know how to program. Battlecode is a real-time strategy game. Two teams of virtual robots roam the screen managing resources and attacking each other with different weapons. Your job is to write code to strategically manage your robot army and control how your robots work together to accomplish their goals. Contestants learn to use artificial intelligence, pathfinding, distributed algorithms, and/or network communications to write their player. The competition lasts throughout January and culminates in a Final Tournament. During these tournaments, the autonomous players are pitted against each other in a dramatic head-to-head fashion. The final rounds of the main tournament are played out in front of a live audience in Kresge auditorium, with the top teams receiving cash prizes. The total prize pool is $50,000. The supported programming languages are Java and Scala, whichever you prefer. A Battlecode game in action, featuring the red team sending a swarm of robots to attack the blue team. Battlecode is a great opportunity to rapidly develop important software skills while having lots of fun at the same time. Many of these skills translate directly to software internships and jobs. You will build your own codebase from scratch, get practice managing a large software system, and get hands-on experience with Java and object-oriented programming. For beginners, our lecture series walks you through creating your first bots and teaches more advanced techniques, and there will be a Newbie Tournament (MIT-only) with its own prize pool. Battlecode also provides an intellectual challenge. Over the course of a month, you will get the chance to invent your own strategies and algorithms to play ...