GCC ACM Greeps Competition

Introduction

Greenfoot is a programming environment for schools and introductory university courses. Greenfoot supports the Java Programming Language, so students learn standard object-oriented programming in Java. The environment is designed specifically to convey object-oriented concepts and principles in a clean, easily accessible manner.

The Greenfoot environment makes creation of graphics and interaction easy. Students can concentrate on modifying the application logic, and engage and experiment with objects. Developing simulations and interactive games becomes easy, and feedback is immediate.

The environment is designed to quickly engage students who may have no prior interest or experience in programming. Achieving simple animation results is quick; sophisticated, professional looking scenarios are possible.

Our Contest

The GCC student chapter of the ACM is hosting a competition using the GreenfootGreeps game. Our contest will take place March 12th at 11 am. The rules are as follows:

  1. All contestants are allowed to explore and download the environment prior to the competition. The web address to do so is:
  2. You will need to download the greenfoot environment in addition to the zip file for the return of the greeps.
  3. The competition will be held in two segments that date the coding segment and the competing segment.
  4. During the coding segment, contestants will write code from 11am to 1pm to be used for the competing segment (pizza by acm will be provided)
  5. During the competing segment, contestants will hand their java file to the judges and they will be entered into the bracket. The judges will then conduct the bracket and broadcast the results.
  6. The competition will not allow any outside code to be brought into the competition. All code used during the competition must be written during the two hour coding segment.
  7. Contestants are not permitted to use any code they wrote in the environment prior to the competition
  8. Contestants are not permitted to use other code relating to the competition in any way
  9. Contestants are only permitted to change the class MyGreep. No other classes may be modified or created.
  10. You cannot extend the Greeps' memory. That is: you are not allowed to add fields (other than final fields) to the class. Some general purpose memory is provided. (The ship can also store data.)
  11. You can call any method defined in the "Greep" superclass, except act().
  12. Greeps have natural GPS sensitivity. You can call getX()/getY() on any object and get/setRotation() on yourself any time. Friendly greeps can communicate. You can call getMemory() and getFlag() on another greep to ask what they know.
  13. No creation of objects. You are not allowed to create any scenario objects (instances of user-defined classes, such as MyGreep). Greeps have no magic powers - they cannot create things out of nothing.
  14. You are not allowed to call any methods (other than those listed in Rule 4) of any other class in this scenario (including Actor and World).

Please do not publish your solution to this competition anywhere. This competition is part of an open source project and thus to continue the competition they request no public posting of any solutions.

Questions

If you have any additional questions please feel free to email: for more information.