Announcing the first Melbourne GNU Robots Championship :-)

[Duncan Bayne]

From http://www.gnu.org/software/gnurobots/ :

"GNU Robots is a game/diversion where you construct a program for a
little robot, then watch him explore a world. The world is filled with
baddies that can hurt you, objects that you can bump into, and food
that you can eat. The goal of the game is to collect as many prizes as
possible before are killed by a baddie or you run out of energy."

The Robots are programmed using Scheme, a Lisp dialect that's easy to
learn.

The Championship is open to anyone 18 years or older who can make it
to Melbourne on April 29th 2011. Competitors under 18 are still
welcome to enter but must be represented on the night by someone who's
allowed to enter licensed premises :-)

The aims:

- learn / hack in Scheme

- have fun & socialise

- promote Free Software

- drink beer

The plan:

- everyone who wants to enter joins the grc-melbourne Google Group
and posts an intro / greeting, so we know how many people are
competing

- competitors & interested parties assemble on Friday April 29th
2011*; bring your robot on a USB stick as the competition machine
won't have Internet access

- each entry is run on the same map, the exact layout of which is a
Big Secret until the night

- the winner is the person whose entry achieved the highest score

- all entries will be posted on the grc-melbourne Google Group the
next day

Ladies & gentlemen ... start your Scheming!

* The exact venue and time is TBD sometime late March, based upon the
number of entries. But it will be in Melbourne, and licensed with
decent beer on tap. Access by public transport is a must and, if at
all possible, decent parking too.