This week at IBM's developerWorks Live! conference in San Francisco, IBM launched a contest called 'Robocode Rumble'. Developers of all levels are being invited to submit their 'Java robots' to IBM's alphaWorks website, where they will find out how well their enty fares through various levels of competition, until the final battle, which is to take place at LinuxWorld this August (in San… Francisco). Prizes include an IBM Thinkpad, Sony Playstation 2s with the Linux Developers Kit, and free subscriptions to IBM's developerWorks Toolbox.

Using Robocode, developers create Java 'robots', Java objects that battle onscreen. Based on the skill of the programmer, entries are separated into three levels — beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Although the game comes with a standard API, the more creative and thorough the developer, the more likely the robot is to outlast the competition.

“But the game isn't just for entertainment,” says IBM. “It's a serious tool to make learning Java fun.”

According to IBM, Robocode is one if alphaWorks' most successful downloads, with over 120,000 downloads since its posting to the site. Robocode can be downloaded from the alphaWorks website Robocode Rumble area.

About Robocode

An excerpt from the Robocode website . . .

Is it possible to learn inheritance, polymorphism, event handling, and inner classes, all while dodging bullets and executing precision attack maneuvers? A surprisingly addictive teaching-tool-turned-game-craze called Robocode is about to make this a reality for Java developers worldwide. Follow along as Sing Li disarms Robocode and starts you on your way to building your own customized lean, mean, fighting machine.

Robocode is an easy-to-use robotics battle simulator that runs across all platforms supporting Java 2. You create a robot, put it onto a battlefield, and let it battle to the bitter end against opponent robots created by other developers. Robocode comes with a set of pre-fab opponents to get you started, but once you outgrow them, you can enter your creation against the world's best in one of the leagues being formed worldwide.

Each Robocode participant creates his or her own robot using elements of the Java language, enabling a range of developers — from rank beginners to advanced hackers — to participate in the fun. Beginning Java developers can learn the basics: calling API code, reading Javadocs, inheritance, inner classes, event handling, and the like. Advanced developers can tune their programming skill in a global challenge to build the best-of-breed software robot.

Robocode is the brainchild of Mathew Nelson, a software engineer in the Advanced Technology, Internet division at IBM.

For further reading . . .

“In this article, we will introduce Robocode and start you on your way to conquering the world by building your very first Robocode robot. We will also take a peek at the fascinating 'behind the scenes' machinery that makes Robocode tick . . .”

Read article

 
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