Difference between revisions of "Jchb AI Global Strat"

Revision as of 04:25, 14 March 2014

This page is related to Summer of Code 2014

See the list of Summer of Code 2014 Ideas

This is a Summer of Code 2014 student page

Description

TODO: "John Benjamin" - AI Global Strategy

TODO: Write a small (1-4 sentences) description of your proposal here.

TODO: Add more first-level sections to detail your proposal

TODO: Set the proper Category in the top of the page ([[Category:XYZ]]), to match the one you'd like to apply for, from the list on the main summer of code page (e.g.: [[Category:SoC_Ideas_AI_Global_strategy]]). Otherwise your idea will be marked as a new one.

IRC

jchb

Application template

This template is no longer asked for during the initial application. Listing it here so that we can still reference it later on.

Application Questionnaire

1) Basics

1.1) Write a small introduction to yourself.

  I am a graduate student in Computer Science at the University of Missouri - Columbia. I've been programming and doing advanced math since my adolescence but just recently got around to graduate school. My undergraduate degree is in economics, and I have a special interest in Algorithmic Game Theory. I also gained exposure last semester to computational intelligence methods that can be used to build computer AI for games such as Wesnoth. With these in mind I am interested in building upon the existing computer AI to account for global strategy considerations. I would like to use a combination of fuzzy logic and game theory to give the AI a system with which to reason about what sorts of moves it should be performing globally based on the actions of other players.

1.2) State your preferred email address. jcb638@mail.missouri.edu

1.3) If you have chosen a nick for IRC and Wesnoth forums, what is it? jchb

1.4) Why do you want to participate in summer of code? Open source is how I got started with computers so I love the whole culture. There is nothing as exciting or prestigious to me as working with this formal mentoring program.

1.5) What are you studying, subject, level and school? Computer Science M.S., first year, University of Missouri

1.6) What country are you from, at what time are you most likely to be able to join IRC? United States - probably late night Central time, 9PM - 12AM

1.7) Do you have other commitments for the summer period ? Do you plan to take any vacations ? If yes, when.

I am planning a 3 hour research project with an economics professor relating to mechanism design. No plans yet to travel.

2) Experience

2.1) What programs/software have you worked on before?

I work in a remote sensing laboratory. We have a large C++ code repository for high performance processing of large sets of digital imagery.

Last summer I worked on a project with an experimental Haskell VLSI compiler.

2.2) Have you developed software in a team environment before? (As opposed to hacking on something on your own)

Yes, I have worked in my laboratory for two years now and am experienced working with teams and using repository and compilation toolchains

2.3) Have you participated to the Google Summer of Code before? As a mentor or a student? In what project? Were you successful? If not, why?

 Not yet

2.4) Are you already involved with any open source development projects? If yes, please describe the project and the scope of your involvement.

2.5) Gaming experience - Are you a gamer?

 I used to, but have cut back recently

2.5.1) What type of gamer are you?

 Whatever is fun. I'm open-minded.

2.5.2) What type of games?

 My gaming passion is Real-time Strategy or Turn based strategy, especially team and co-op scenarios

2.5.3) What type of opponents do you prefer?

 I prefer playing human opponents

2.5.4) Are you more interested in story or gameplay?

 Gameplay. I'll read a book for the story

2.5.5) Have you played Wesnoth? If so, tell us roughly for how long and whether you lean towards single player or multiplayer.

 I've played Wesnoth off and on for at least 4 years. I usually play the AI.

We do not plan to favor Wesnoth players as such, but some particular projects require a good feeling for the game which is hard to get without having played intensively.

2.6) If you have contributed any patches to Wesnoth, please list them below. You can also list patches that have been submitted but not committed yet and patches that have not been specifically written for GSoC. If you have gained commit access to our repository (during the evaluation period or earlier) please state so.

3) Communication skills

3.1) Though most of our developers are not native English speakers, English is the project's working language. Describe your fluency level in written English.

 completely fluent in English

3.2) What spoken languages are you fluent in?

 only English

3.3) Are you good at interacting with other players? Our developer community is friendly, but the player community can be a bit rough.

   Having played DotA for a while, I am familiar with abusive criticism. I think it is inevitable as part of a passionate gaming fanbase, particularly complex strategy games. Perhaps not necessary, it is a way of enforcing standards of play and strategic concepts within a games' community.

3.4) Do you give constructive advice?

  Yes, I know how to communicate meaningful criticisms in an articulate and respectful manner

3.5) Do you receive advice well?

  I listen and don't take constructive criticism personally.

3.6) Are you good at sorting useful criticisms from useless ones?

Yes

3.7) How autonomous are you when developing ? Would you rather discuss intensively changes and not start coding until you know what you want to do or would you rather code a proof of concept to "see how it turn out", taking the risk of having it thrown away if it doesn't match what the project want

4) Project

4.1) Did you select a project from our list? If that is the case, what project did you select? What do you want to especially concentrate on?

 I selected the global AI project

4.2) If you have invented your own project, please describe the project and the scope.

4.3) Why did you choose this project?

 I chose this project because I feel particularly qualified with my expertise in economics, computational intelligence, and general programming. It is also interesting to me.

4.4) Include an estimated timeline for your work on the project. Don't forget to mention special things like "I booked holidays between A and B" and "I got an exam at ABC and won't be doing much then".

4.5) Include as much technical detail about your implementation as you can

4.6) What do you expect to gain from this project?

4.7) What would make you stay in the Wesnoth community after the conclusion of SOC?

5) Practical considerations

5.1) Are you familiar with any of the following tools or languages?

Git (used for all commits)

yes

C++ (language used for all the normal source code)

yes

STL, Boost, Sdl (C++ libraries used by Wesnoth)

yes

Python (optional, mainly used for tools)

no

build environments (eg cmake/scons)

no

WML (the wesnoth specific scenario language)

no

Lua (used in combination with WML to create scenarios)

no

5.2) Which tools do you normally use for development? Why do you use them?

 gcc, vim, Make, git. I use them because they're always available. I can be at a coffee shop or at home and plug into a common environment with my code safe in the cloud.

5.3) What programming languages are you fluent in?

 C, C++, Haskell, PHP, Perl

5.4) Would you mind talking with your mentor on telephone / internet phone? We would like to have a backup way for communications for the case that somehow emails and IRC do fail. If you are willing to do so, please do list a phone number (including international code) so that we are able to contact you. You should probably *only* add this number in the application for you submit to google since the info in the wiki is available in public. We will *not* make any use of your number unless some case of "there is no way to contact you" does arise!

 please message me on IRC for my phone number

In general, students should be as verbose as possible in their answers and feel free to elaborate.

@@ Line 17: / Line 17: @@
 This template is no longer asked for during the initial application. Listing it here so that we can still reference it later on.
-==== Does your organization have an application template you would like to see students use? ====
+==== Application Questionnaire ====
-Students wishing to participate in GSoC should copy the questions below to a new page and fill it with the answers.
-Please note that we generally plan to meet potential students through our IRC channel. So beside just answering these questions, potential candidates consider visiting us in IRC: #wesnoth-dev on irc.freenode.net. This is where most of our work takes place and participating in IRC is mandatory for GSoC students participating with Wesnoth. Our experience is that this is the easiest way to communicate and solve problems that come up.
 ) Basics
 .1) Write a small introduction to yourself.
+   I am a graduate student in Computer Science at the University of Missouri - Columbia. I've been programming and doing advanced math since my adolescence but just recently got around to graduate school. My undergraduate degree is in economics, and I have a special interest in Algorithmic Game Theory. I also gained exposure last semester to computational intelligence methods that can be used to build computer AI for games such as Wesnoth. With these in mind I am interested in building upon the existing computer AI to account for global strategy considerations. I would like to use a combination of fuzzy logic and game theory to give the AI a system with which to reason about what sorts of moves it should be performing globally based on the actions of other players.
 .2) State your preferred email address.
+jcb638@mail.missouri.edu
 .3) If you have chosen a nick for IRC and Wesnoth forums, what is it?
+jchb
 .4) Why do you want to participate in summer of code?
+Open source is how I got started with computers so I love the whole culture. There is nothing as exciting or prestigious to me as working with this formal mentoring program.
 .5) What are you studying, subject, level and school?
+Computer Science M.S., first year, University of Missouri
 .6) What country are you from, at what time are you most likely to be able to join IRC?
+United States - probably late night Central time, 9PM - 12AM
 .7) Do you have other commitments for the summer period ? Do you plan to take any vacations ? If yes, when.
+I am planning a 3 hour research project with an economics professor relating to mechanism design. No plans yet to travel.
 ) Experience
 .1) What programs/software have you worked on before?
+I work in a remote sensing laboratory. We have a large C++ code repository for high performance processing of large sets of digital imagery.
+Last summer I worked on a project with an experimental Haskell VLSI compiler.
 .2) Have you developed software in a team environment before? (As opposed to hacking on something on your own)
+Yes, I have worked in my laboratory for two years now and am experienced working with teams and using repository and compilation toolchains
 .3) Have you participated to the Google Summer of Code before? As a mentor or a student? In what project? Were you successful? If not, why?
+  Not yet
 .4) Are you already involved with any open source development projects? If yes, please describe the project and the scope of your involvement.
 .5) Gaming experience - Are you a gamer?
+  I used to, but have cut back recently
 .5.1) What type of gamer are you?
+  Whatever is fun. I'm open-minded.
 .5.2) What type of games?
+  My gaming passion is Real-time Strategy or Turn based strategy, especially team and co-op scenarios
 .5.3) What type of opponents do you prefer?
+  I prefer playing human opponents
 .5.4) Are you more interested in story or gameplay?
+  Gameplay. I'll read a book for the story
 .5.5) Have you played Wesnoth? If so, tell us roughly for how long and whether you lean towards single player or multiplayer.
+  I've played Wesnoth off and on for at least 4 years. I usually play the AI.
 We do not plan to favor Wesnoth players as such, but some particular projects require a good feeling for the game which is hard to get without having played intensively.
@@ Line 71: / Line 83: @@
 .1) Though most of our developers are not native English speakers, English is the project's working language.  Describe your fluency level in written English.
+  completely fluent in English
 .2) What spoken languages are you fluent in?
+  only English
 .3) Are you good at interacting with other players? Our developer community is friendly, but the player community can be a bit rough.
+    Having played DotA for a while, I am familiar with abusive criticism. I think it is inevitable as part of a passionate gaming fanbase, particularly complex strategy games. Perhaps not necessary, it is a way of enforcing standards of play and strategic concepts within a games' community.
 .4) Do you give constructive advice?
+   Yes, I know how to communicate meaningful criticisms in an articulate and respectful manner
 .5) Do you receive advice well?
+   I listen and don't take constructive criticism personally.
 .6) Are you good at sorting useful criticisms from useless ones?
+   Yes
 .7) How autonomous are you when developing ? Would you rather discuss intensively changes and not start coding until you know what you want to do or would you rather code a proof of concept to "see how it turn out", taking the risk of having it thrown away if it doesn't match what the project want
@@ Line 88: / Line 101: @@
 .1) Did you select a project from our list? If that is the case, what project did you select? What do you want to especially concentrate on?
+  I selected the global AI project
 .2) If you have invented your own project, please describe the project and the scope.
 .3) Why did you choose this project?
+  I chose this project because I feel particularly qualified with my expertise in economics, computational intelligence, and general programming. It is also interesting to me.
 .4) Include an estimated timeline for your work on the project. Don't forget to mention special things like "I booked holidays between A and B" and "I got an exam at ABC and won't be doing much then".
@@ Line 106: / Line 120: @@
 .1) Are you familiar with any of the following tools or languages?
 * Git (used for all commits)
+ yes
 * C++ (language used for all the normal source code)
+ yes
 * STL, Boost, Sdl (C++ libraries used by Wesnoth)
+ yes
 * Python (optional, mainly used for tools)
+ no
 * build environments (eg cmake/scons)
+ no
 * WML (the wesnoth specific scenario language)
+ no
 * Lua (used in combination with WML to create scenarios)
+ no
 .2) Which tools do you normally use for development? Why do you use them?
+  gcc, vim, Make, git. I use them because they're always available. I can be at a coffee shop or at home and plug into a common environment with my code safe in the cloud.
 .3) What programming languages are you fluent in?
+  C, C++, Haskell, PHP, Perl
 .4) Would you mind talking with your mentor on telephone / internet phone? We would like to have a backup way for communications for the case that somehow emails and IRC do fail. If you are willing to do so, please do list a phone number (including international code) so that we are able to contact you. You should probably *only* add this number in the application for you submit to google since the info in the wiki is available in public. We will *not* make any use of your number unless some case of "there is no way to contact you" does arise!
+  please message me on IRC for my phone number
 In general, students should be as verbose as possible in their answers and feel free to elaborate.