Welcome to the second annual code war. This page provides all prep information needed to be ready to compete. If you need info to sign up, please go to Code War signup.

When:

• Saturday 26 January 2013
• The school level competition will run from 10:00am - 6:00pm local time.
• Local playoffs are at 6:00pm local time.
• The top 2 teams from each school will then compete at Sunday 11:00am Mountain Time (Colorado).
• The top 2 teams have until 7:00pm to check in their code for the final.
• We will be available from 9:00am to answer any questions during setup.

Where:

• Boston University - Room: B28, Math and Computer Science Building
• Brown University - Room TBD
• College of William and Mary - Room TBD
• Colorado College - Room: TSC 209
• Colorado School of Mines - Room: BB W280
• Colorado State University - Room: CSB 215
• Columbia University - Room: 814 Pupin Hall
• Computer Science Center - Saint Petersburg - Room: TBD
• Georgia Institute of Technology - Room: Klaus 2443
• Harvey Mudd College - Room: Jacobs B132
• Hendrix College - Room TBD
• Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi - Room TBD
• Michigan Tech - Room: Dow 709
• Penn State - University Park - Room: 222 IST
• Princeton University - Room TBD
• Purdue University - West Lafayette - Room: LWSN B160
• Saint Petersburg State University - Faculty of Engineering Cybernetics - Room TBD
• UC San Diego - Room: Jacobs Hall 3311
• United States Military Academy - Room TBD
• University of Alberta - Room: U.A.C.S. Office, CSC 1-40
• University of Central Florida - Room: HEC-202
• University of Chicago - Room: Ryerson 277
• University of Colorado at Boulder - Room TBD
• University of Maryland - College Park - Room CSIC 1115
• University of Pennsylvania - Room TBD
• University of Toronto - Room TBD
• University of Victoria - Room: ECS 250
• University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire - Room: Phillips 115

Very Important:

The contest is not using the LastRobotStanding program. LastRobotStanding uses the same framework so you can get your system configured in advance.

You do need a system or virtual machine running Windows to run the game server to test your client. You do not need Visual Studio for the server unless you want to trace through the server code.

• The Game Server - The term "server" is used below both for each team testing their code and for the school finals. The server is the server component of the game software which is composed of a client and server piece. The server however does not require a hardware server type box. You probably want to run it on a laptop. So the software is the server half but the hardware is just a laptop.
• Pre-game prep:
1. Install LastRobotStanding.zip for your environment (details below). This is not the contest game. But the contest game will use the identical framework for the game server and client so you can insure that you have everything in place for the game.
2. If you are programming in Java, we strongly recomend IntelliJ as your IDE. If you are programming in C#, we strongly recomend ReSharper as an Add-In to Visual Studio. (We foind both absolutely essential here at Windward.)
3. Get a 32x32 pixel avatar (or we will use a Care Bear picture). For the final please use an avatar that includes your school logo.
4. For any posts, tweets, etc. about the competition, please use the hashtags #codewar and #windward.
5. Please go to www.windward.net and click both the Facebook Like and Google + buttons.
6. If you're ready to go and it's not 10:00 yet, watch Cubicle War.
7. Game proctor - Have a projector connected to your laptop where you will run the school final (game server). This allows everyone to watch the final as it plays. (If your laptop supports dual external monitors, get 2 projectors - the game makes good use of dual monitors.)
8. School Press Office - Have someone film the contest, primarily the start, lunch, and final when it plays. The video and pictures are an excellent recruiting tool.
• Do Not:
1. Post, tweet, etc. anything about the specifics of the programming challenge until after 10:00am pacific time. (If you do, you give the Pacific TimeZone schools a head start.)
2. Do not post the link to the game description page before 10:00am pacific time.
• After the game:
1. If you are looking for an internship or job with a start-up software company in the Boulder, CO area, email your resume to david@windward.net. Tell me what type of company you are looking for and I will forward your info on to the local start-ups and list you as a code war participant (that's a big plus).
2. Blog about your team effort and send us the url to your blog. We will link to it from our code war page.
3. Give us your feedback on how we can make the contest better, we would like to receive suggestions for next year.
4. If you need reporting, docgen, or B.I. for a school project, download the free student copy of Windward.
5. If you enjoy real-time strategy games, download the free copy of Enemy Nations.
• The Programming Environment: The game server communicates with the A. I. (clients) over TCP. Therefore the A. I. entries can be written in any language on any operating system. We will provide sample A.I.s in C#, C++ (Windows only), Java, & Python. So you can use the language you are most familiar with.
  You install the server and one client. You only need to use that one client, ignore the other clients.

Note: The details of the competition are not be released until 10:00am the day of the code war. We do this to keep the total time to just 8 hours. If we released information early, students would start programming earlier and then this would take a lot more of their time. Don't worry, you will have everything installed & running in about 5 minutes.