The RoboCode competition is aimed at 1st-year programming students and it is an excellent opportunity for students to showcase their programming skills and advance their knowledge of programming concepts. In the RoboCode competition, teams write computer code that enables robot tanks to battle against each other in an arena.

The robots that students built need to be programmed to avoid being hit and must move around the arena without manual control, which gives participants the opportunity to demonstrate their programming abilities and advance their knowledge of GUI programming, API usage, and artificial intelligence.  

The DkIT robot, named “Legionary”, showcased impressive behaviour, with clever target acquisition and perimeter awareness, winning more than 95% of its battles. This win places DkIT at the top of the leaderboard of wins for the competition, with four wins over the years.

The victory is a testament to the hard work and dedication of both students and the wider team at the DkIT student branch of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). The ACM, led by their branch secretary, 4th-year student computing Jessica Savage, played a leading role in selecting DkIT’s winning team from of an in-house Game Jam, which ran in February 2023. The two students were accompanied to Thurles by the ACM Chairperson, 2nd year computing student Ryan Habis and the ACM’s involvement in the Game Jam and the RoboCode competition highlights the importance of DkIT students engaging in extra-curricular activities and taking a leadership role in organising student events.

Congratulations to the winners, and to the DkIT ACM and their members for their work in organising the DkIT Game Jam and getting the competitors to Thurles for the RoboCode final.