I'd encourage students to compete, even if your best bots just run away from their enemies. My buddy and I actually used Battlecode as our final project in our

I'd encourage students to compete, even if your best bots just run away from their enemies. My buddy and I actually used Battlecode as our final project in our AI course. We worked as a team and then had a mini competition between ourselves using different techniques (his was focus on resources, mine seek and destroy). Even if you feel underwhelmed going against MIT students taking it as a class, smaller schools still get recognition for participation. There is no correct solution; I think '08's winner just mass spawned tanks instead of running any type of strategy (he did test different set-ups and that was ultimately the best). Finally, like the post suggests, its a great thing get experience with and if you are recognized in anyway (even Honorable Mention) is something nice to slap on the ol' resume.