Hunger Games: Game theory programming competition

https://brilliant.org/competitions/hunger-games/

by skhim • 13 years ago

26 6 13 years ago

jmilloy2• 13 years ago

The teams with the most deserving algorithms will then have a short video interview with Brilliant staff, which will qualify them to compete in the final game.

Strange; why not a tournament style? Prejudging based on something other than survival is a strange choice.

skhim• 13 years ago

Hi I'm Dave Mattingly, the creator of this competition. A couple reasons:

1) The algorithms will be run against each other tournament-style. The interviews are a cheater-prevention mechanism. We wanted to make sure people's work is their own, since there are prizes and glory on the line.

2) One of the grand prizes is reserved for the best algorithm, and is purely objective. We are giving contestants clear rules to optimize around, and it's only fair to select a winner who wins based on that set of rules. But keeping some of the other prizes flexible lets us select other winners for other criteria of excellence as well. My larger goal with Brilliant is to create more meaningful problem solving challenges and assessments that reward creativity and critical and analytical ability, rather than rote learning. (Also discussed by the CEO in a recent TED talk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnQCYZ8Oz8Q&feature=em-share_...)

[Update] I changed the wording on the site to make 1) more clear.

jmilloy2• 13 years ago

Cool, makes sense Dave! Thanks.

ryancarson• 13 years ago

I love this idea :)

eren_bali• 13 years ago

Looks really interesting. It would be nice if we can use javascript, ruby etc

jameshowardwang• 13 years ago

this looks really fun!

Hunger Games: Game theory programming competition

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