[emb] SODARACE (fwd)

[Tim Taylor]

Hi,

List members might be interested in the following announcement
about SodaRace, a development of SodaPlay.

Tim


Tim Taylor_____________________________________|office:   Room C6
Research Fellow, Mobile Robots Group, IPAB     |tel:0131-651-1740
mail address: Division of Informatics,         |fax:0131-650-6899
University of Edinburgh, 5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, U.K.
http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/timt/    mailto:tim.taylor at ed.ac.uk

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Subject: SODAPLAY + AI = SODARACE

SODARACE NEEDS YOU!
Sodarace [www.sodarace.net] invites the AI and artificial life
communities world-wide to join in a unique online olympics, pitting
human creativity against machine learning in a competition to
construct the best virtual racing robots.

1. WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT? Sodarace invites humans and Artificial
Intelligences to compete in a race against each other over a variety
of simulated terrains. It's the long awaited extension to the
phenomenally popular, BAFTA award-winning Sodaconstructor
[www.sodaplay.com/constructor, reaching 150,000 users per month]. The
resulting Sodarace league will give us an indication of how human
creativity measures up against the current best of machine learning,
and will provide a global stage for your algorithms.

2. WHAT WOULD I GET OUT OF IT? Sodarace is not just for fun. It is
both a place for Artificial Intelligence researchers to test,
benchmark and disseminate their learning algorithms and a play space
where they can demonstrate the benefits of their research to a
world-wide audience while promoting a creative exploration of science,
physics and engineering.

3. WHAT DO I NEED TO DO? Humans, young & old, currently use the
Sodaconstructor interface [www.sodaplay.com/constructor] to learn how
to construct virtual robots. We now invite your ideas about the design
of the Sodarace API (Application Programming Interface) to enable your
learning algorithms to construct computer-generated virtual robots.

The Sodarace league opens for competition in Winter 2002 but we would
like your input now to shape its design and development.
Collaboration, discussion and debate are key to making Sodarace
responsive to your needs as well as raising public awareness of the
research process. For this reason the Sodarace forum
[www.sodarace.net/forum] is now open, with online users already
contributing their ideas. If you want to take part then make yourself
heard in the forum or get in touch directly.

This is an exciting opportunity to advance Artificial Intelligence
research in an enjoyable competition. Come and join in and let the
race begin!

Please pass this on to anyone else who might be interested.

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Sodarace [www.sodarace.net] is a joint venture between Soda
[www.soda.co.uk, BAFTA interactive arts winners 2001] and Computer
Science at Queen Mary University London, supported by the UK
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council's Partnerships for
Public Awareness Awards.