Hardcore Code Competition 2011

RUCUS has organised a student programming competition, called Hardcore Code (HCC).  Entelect (one of the big recruiters of our graduates) has very generously provided prize sponsorship for this competition.

The competition is being run as a league with points for "bots" playing one of two different games (one inspired by Tron and a poker game).  The HCC website provides up to the moment scores and a leaderboard.  There are prizes in several categories, including undergraduate, postgraduate and RUCUS members.

The competition is a king-of-the-hill style competition where students can submit programs that compete against each other.  The games have been designed so that it is easy to make a valid submission (for beginner programmers) but there is a lot of skill involved when making a good submission.  The idea is that students will learn about common algorithms and data structures while trying to make better bots.  The core vision of the project is to inspire students to go out and experiment with programming, and create a community where students can share knowledge with each other.

Students are free to modify and submit new bots throughout the whole competition, allowing them to respond to the strategies of their opponents.  Every four hours a round is run, and the winning bots score points for their owners.  Leaderboards displaying the current standings are available on the website, and the standings on those leaderboards at the cutoff date will determine the winners.

The competition closes at 1:00am on 7 October 2011, after which the prize winners will be announced.