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School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science

Students compete to design game AI agents in annual hack

The 5th Design and Build Hack Week saw over 20 students compete to design and program a game AI agent. 

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GIF of one of the AI Agents from the final of the Design and Build Hack 2021.The Design and Build Hack Week 2021 was held successfully as an online competition from 22nd to 26th Feb. This year, the students were challenged with the design and programming of a game AI agent to play the classic 2D move and shoot game.

This marks the 5th anniversary of the exciting competition that aims to bring London students from QMUL and the Beijing students from the Joint Programme with Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT) together. It is organised by the Joint Programme Student Innovation Centre (JPIC) with the generous support from EECS Game AI group. 

More than 20 students registered with the event. Five finalists, all from our Joint Programme in Beijing, were selected based on their agents’ performance in the preliminary games. They presented their ideas and agents to Prof Simon Lucas and Dr Paula Fonseca, who judged the quality and originality of their agents.

During the final game webinar, Dr Matthew Tang, the organiser of the event and the Deputy Director of the JPIC, showed the games live to the finalists and audience remotely. Our student Xiao Zheng, from the Telecommunications Engineering with Management programme, won both the best game performer and overall champion prizes while Yunkun Wang, from the e-Commerce Engineering with Law programme, came second and was awarded the best presentation prize.

Dr Michael Chai, QM Director of the Joint Programme, praised the hard and intensive work of all participants and closed the event by wishing the return of a face-to-face event next year.

Contact: Dr Matthew Tang

 

 

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