Learning AI techniques through bot programming for a turn-based strategy game
Published:
Cite: Bezgodov, A., Karsakov, A., Mukhina, K., Egorov, D. & Zakharchuk, A. (2015). Learning AI techniques through bot programming for a turn-based strategy game. Proceedings of the European Conference on Games-based Learning, 2015-January, 66-74.
Video games have become an integral part of the educational process. Born and raised in the digital era, Russian students of the 21st century are seduced by entertainment and in contrast they perceive STEM educational activities as boring and annoying. To spark an interest in Artificial Intelligence (AI) programming we decided to implement a competitive contest in the educational process. By combining the developments of the eScience Research Institute and educational techniques, we have introduced elements of entertainment to a group project of 6 ECTS during the second semester of the Double Degree Master's Program in Computational Science. The main goal of this project is to teach students basics of AI programming by creating bots for a strategy video game. Typical tasks and multi-domain specificity stimulate students to discover and apply new information from available sources promoting the principles of self-education and lifelong learning. An exaggerated and concentrated example of diverse behavioral patterns in the game should help students to transfer the patterns acquired from the games to solve real-life problems.