Mech Mania is a student-run AI hackathon run as a part of Reflections|Projections, UIUC’s annual tech conference. Each year a game is built to be played by scripts written by the contestants.
The first Mech Mania competition I heard of was Mech Mania 24, which was run early on in my Freshman year at UIUC. I decided to enter the competition on a whim without knowing anyone else, but I am so glad I did!
That year’s game was rock-paper-scissors themed with each team training up their character in PvE RPS fights before engaging with their opponent in a series of RPS battles to take the crown. The element that made the game slightly less random was that by training you could increase the damage done by a win with a certain move, but in doing so unevenly you would indicate to your opponent which move you would rather win with. Ultimately, the fun of that year’s competition was trying to predict how your opponents would select their move based on yours and their own stats.
Our bot placed 16th out of 36, which wasn’t amazing but felt great for my first competition. In the end, it was also my last — but for a good reason! I loved the experience so much that I decided to join the development team for the following year and stuck with it until I graduated.