Attention all coders: make a Mario-bot, win $500

hal-mario
This looks interesting. IEEE is sponsoring a competition in which coders are to put together Mario-playing bots to compete for cash prizes. Those of you familiar with the Time Attack scene will know that bots like this can be used to accomplish otherwise-impossible (or just tedious) tasks, but designing one to play the game semi-intelligently is another thing entirely.

Your program will be piggybacking on Infinite Mario Brothers, a Java version of Super Mario Brothers, with the significant addition of levels that never end. How cool is that?

Entirely hand-crafted AIs as well as evolving ones will be accepted, and in fact comparisons between those types are much the point of the contest. I don’t know the first thing about either, but I’m going to keep my ear to the ground for video of the events. Deadline for the first event is in two weeks, so get moving!

[via Reddit]