I was so excited last night, and was totally planning to put up a post, but then I got distracted and forgot. And now it's late and I should be asleep, but I don't want to put it off any further. So without further ado...
Last night was the Robocraft tournament. That's what I was working on this past month - writing code for virtual robots that could duke it out with each other. Sarah and I were essentially programming a video game. In Java. For details, check out the link above. To explain briefly, we got four robot types (2 land bots - Sentries and Tanks, 2 air bots - Falcons and Bombers) and they had to work together to capture the enemy's flag and bring it back to their own flag. Air robots could fly over obstacles, but they couldn't carry the flag. So they were useful for attacking and scouting. It was up to the ground robots to navigate the map and take the flag. Sarah was in charge of writing code for the sentries, who could attack other ground troops. I was in charge of writing code for the falcons (attack air troops only) and bombers (attack ground troops below). We didn't use tanks (surface to air attacks). Sentries would seek out the flag, and falcons and bombers would handle most of the attacking.
Sarah wrote some excellent navigational code for the sentries. Sometimes they would get stuck, but I was always amazed at how well they could traverse the map. Unfortunately, the sentries had a short attention span, and they would often get bored and return to the flag bearer for new instructions before they had gotten very far.
The falcons were okay, but not very effective unless there were many of them. They are cheap and fast, but they don't have much firepower. I don't think I ever managed to spawn enough of them - they'd get killed off rather quickly. The bombers, on the other hand, I was in love with from the start. They had a really good sensor range, so it was very easy for them to spot and chase enemies. My bombers were like faithful dogs - chasing an enemy around until it stopped moving, and then bombing the heck out of it. Fun to watch. ^_^
Anyway, that was us. We weren't finalists. But we went to the final tournament and watched the finalist teams play, and it was excellent. We saw some awesome strategies, and everyone was really enthusiastic. After the tournament finished, cash prizes were given to the winners. Before that, there were also a few honorable mentions for teams who didn't make it to the finals but had interesting strategies. Then there were some honorable mentions for good strategies with different robot types. The announcers then said, "The Battle Effectiveness and Bomber Teamwork Award goes to Team 124." Sarah and I stared at each other in blank astonishment, vaguely realizing, hey, that's us!. Then we went down, and I had to explain how my bombers worked to make them so effective. And my mind completely went blank and I think I said something like, "Uh, I kind of forget. I think they were just good at swarming the enemy." And then this annoying little kid who goes to anime club waved and yelled at me until I couldn't ignore him, and waved back. Then we fled back to our seats.
We won $300 for some code that I wrote! I'm still kind of in shock. It's not even complicated code. The bombers just seem to be very good at following their prey. But hey, I can't complain. So right now I have this little certificate that says '$300' and 'Schlumberger' on it (Sarah and I laugh about how that, by itself, is the prize). I am assuming that real money is involved somewhere? <_<;
At least, after the ceremonies were over and everyone was grabbing Google and Robocraft t-shirts (I have like, five t-shirts now), some people asked me about the bomber code, and I could actually explain what they did, without sounding quite so stupid. I guess this was my yearly fifteen minutes of fame (there was the carrot cake incident freshman year, and I know there was something else last year, but I forget what - placing 6th for 6.270, perhaps?).
I think that very few girls take 6.370. There was only one finalist team that had a girl in it. The rest were all guys. And Sarah and I were the only all-girl team to receive a prize. Heck, the only other girl to win a prize was that finalist. By the way, did I mention that we had a good laugh when we heard that the only team we beat during the seeding rounds was a ground of three Wellesley girls? XD Yeah, we make fun of Wellesley almost as much as we make fun of Harvard.
So, even though there was much complaining during January because of the lack of support and the frequency of bugs and software updates, in the end, things worked out all right. We did something useful. We got credit for doing it (6 coveted Engineering Design Points, yesss! Well, 6 normal credits too, but who cares about that?). We even won something! Plus, I have some nice Robocraft shirts, and even a Google shirt (to complement my Amazon shirts, ha ha). I also got a scary girly Google shirt for one of my sisters (one of the o's in the word Google is the planetary sign for Venus - you know, the symbol that stands for woman... it's terrifying). I also went on the MIT-Japan retreat this weekend and learned a lot about Japan. Sounds terrifying - too much information at once. Got a black shirt there too. I'm up to my ears in black t-shirts (also got a 6.270 t-shirt - that's the competition that I did last year). I will talk more about it later or something.
Anyway, tomorrow is Registration Day and I have to register for scary classes. And then term begins again and life gets crazy once more! Will it never end? All too soon, I'm afraid. ._.
- Flykyr Skysong
Current song: None
Current mood: Tired
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