G-Research

Dominic.Nancekievill@gresearch.co.uk

Project suggestion:

Today's high tech financial markets provide a competitive environment in which having access to the smartest software can make the difference between success and failure.

We would like you to create a similarly competitive environment where programs can be designed and then pitted against each other, only with rather better graphics. The software in this case will be driving cars in a racing simulation rather than placing orders on an exchange.

Using Unity as a starting point to provide a graphics engine and physics model, your completed project should allow a competitor to sit down at an easy-to-understand interface and write a simple controller for a racing car, then at the touch of a button see that how that controller fares in a race against those of other competitors (and at least one which you've created yourselves).

The API should be simple enough that I can knock something up in a few minutes on the demonstration day which will at least make it around the track, even if just by sticking to 10 mph and aiming for the middle of the road. At the same time there should be enough detail in the AI's view of the world to make it possible to write a truly smart driver which takes the racing line, responds to other cars and understands as much of driving as your physics model allows.

We're always looking for ways to identify smart graduates at recruitment fairs, so if your solution works well we may ask to take it to universities around the country as a way of identifying high calibre students.

Modified:

AI racing market

As AI-controlled vehicles like Google's Self-Driving Car become more common, the person who gets to work fastest will be the one with the best algorithms. Your task is to create a competitive market in which members of the public can submit algorithms to see which is the best. You'll need to define a simple scripting language and API suitable for creating the entries. Users should be able to enter their script directly into an interactive game then see its performance in an actual real-time car race created with the Unity graphics engine and physics model. The best entries should be stored and ranked in a leader board, with new players able to see existing code and tweak it for better performance. In future, this kind of algorithm market could be applied to other problem domains such as finance.

Projects from previous years:

• Resilient and Rapid Raspberries