Robocode, an open source once created by IBM has now became an educational game designed to help people learn to program Java and have fun doing it. For me, it's been quite a while since I've did any serious programing in Java. To be honest, programming has never been my strong point, so when we were giving this assignment, memories of staying up all night debugging code came flashing through my head.
But to my surprise, this assignment was quite enjoyable. We were task to design 13 robot to do certain tasks. The first robot we designed was a sitting duck, which like it's name just sits there and do nothing. This was basically a "Hello World" program, as simple as it gets. But by completing this first design, I was about to run the Robocode program and see my "sitting duck". I was actually proud of myself for making this robot, kind of like a new parent seeing their new born baby. It made me feel enthusiastic and motivated to program and design more robots.
As I complete more robot designs, the task which they perform gets a little more complicated to program, and eventually I ran into a few problems. Due to my lack of program skills and time away from the Java language, I wasn't able to complete all of the 13 designs. I've managed to complete 10 out of the 13 leaving Tracking03, Firing03, and Firing04 unfinished. I was stuck on tracking03 for quite a while trying to figure out how to scan for the closest enemy, but time ran out on me before I could figure it out.
One thing that I've learned from this assignment is that these robot vary greatly depending on the programmer. A novice programmer can create simple robot that does 1 simple task, while expert programmer can create robot to be like Rombo (Rambo) a one man killing machine.
As of right now, I'm no where near these expert programmer that design robot worthy of competition. But someday, I will show you my java supremacy and create a robot worthy of competition. Til then, I'll be bushing up on my Java, and I hope you will too.
Here is the link to download my design
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