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Using competition to motivate students: an AI assignment case study

Using competition to motivate students: an AI assignment case study. Andrew Williams Games Team Leader A.Williams@bolton.ac.uk. Index. Games at Bolton Hexapawn assignment in AI The role of competition Future directions Questions. Games at Bolton. Games at Bolton.

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Using competition to motivate students: an AI assignment case study

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  1. Using competition to motivate students: an AI assignment case study Andrew Williams Games Team Leader A.Williams@bolton.ac.uk

  2. Index • Games at Bolton • Hexapawn assignment in AI • The role of competition • Future directions • Questions

  3. Games at Bolton

  4. Games at Bolton • Three dedicated members of staff • About a dozen others contribute • 138 current students • 55 first years • Sixteen graduates so far • Two dedicated games labs • 25 PCs each • Including PlayStation NetYaroze and PS2 Linux Consoles

  5. Games at Bolton • Two courses: • Computer Games Software Development • Very technical • Now in its fourth year • Games Design • More creative and less technical • First recruitment September 2005

  6. Games at Bolton • Sixteen students have graduated from the CGSD course so far • Four are working for a local games company • One has devised and delivered games courses for teenagers • One has set up his own company producing educational games • Several teams working on “mods”

  7. Hexapawn Assignment in AI

  8. Why I’m not boring (*) * According to my boss • Chiefly because of my chess program • Started in 1998 • Equal 5th in first Computer Chess Tournament (CCT1), February 2000 • 15th in World Computer Chess Championships, Maastricht 2002 • 8th in first CCT-BLITZ tournament, October 2005

  9. The AI module • A level 3 module • Optional • All games students do introductory AI elsewhere in their studies • Offered to students from other programmes • Usually taught by two people in tandem, each covers topics that he finds interesting • I like 2 person, perfect information games

  10. Chess Draughts Noughts and Crosses Hexapawn Hexapawn rules: White goes first Pawns move one square forward… … or they can capture diagonally Win if your pawn reaches the end Lose if you have no moves (or no pawns) Two person, perfect information games

  11. Choosing hexapawn • Hexapawn is more interesting than OXO in terms of game-tree search • Expand the board • Change piece behaviour

  12. Small-sided game still too easy • Thought experiments: • Who wins if White starts with b1-b2? • Who wins if White starts with a1-a2? 3 2 1 a b c

  13. If I do this and he does that… • Starting with b1-b2 • b1-b2 a3xb2 c1xb2 c3-c2 a1-a2 c2-c1 • And we reach the position below • Black has reached White's back rank (on c1), so Black wins 3 2 1 * a1-a2 is left as an exercise a b c

  14. 8x8 board 16 pieces each Double first move from the back rank Over four weeks we developed a simple program in C for playing hexapawn A new game with new rules

  15. The “hexapawn” assignment • The assignment was to improve the program in certain ways: • Better evaluation • Better game-tree search • Students could swap object files to test against each other without revealing their techniques • 30% awarded for performance in a tournament (20% for trying interesting things, 50% for report and documentation)

  16. The Role of Competition

  17. My kind of assignment • Essentially, the assignment is a miniature version of what we do in the world of computer chess • Difficult • Frustrating • Easy to judge progress • Fun • Rewards thorough testing

  18. Results • The assignment has been conducted twice with twelve students in total • Average score of 60% • Several students have commented favourably on the assignment • Several exchanged versions over Christmas so that they could assess their progress • One student complained that he spent so long on hexapawn that he neglected other work

  19. Results • A wide range of techniques were implemented • Player on move is critical • Null move doesn’t seem to work well • Contrast with chess, where null move is key • Hash tables are a major win • Predictably hard to get working • It turns out that leaving defenders back is a very good strategy

  20. Results • All students managed to produce a version that could beat the bog-standard williams program • I had expected this • One student produced a version that consistently beat my best version • I had not imagined that this could happen! • It had never occurred to me to leave defenders back

  21. Future Directions

  22. Time to put hexapawn away? • The structure of courses in our department has changed • Probably from next year, only games students will study AI • Replace hexapawn with something more like a video game • But retain the element of competition as a motivating tool

  23. Any Questions?

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