Bering Waters University Announces World’s First Solana Based AI Challenge

Bering Waters Group
4 min readAug 3, 2022

--

Bering Waters University is a program designed to train recent graduates for software engineer careers to become experts in blockchain technology. Our mission is to solve the talent gap for leading blockchain projects globally and provide some of the most exciting careers in the tech industry. Just recently, Bering Waters joined as a sponsor a Thesis Competition organised by 4Science Institute under patronage of IEEE Polish Section at the leading Polish Universities.

Today, Bering Waters University is proud to announce the launch of a Rust based programming challenge! The top three participants in the competition will be pre-qualified for a fast-track interview for a paid training to career position at Bering Waters University to become an expert in building blockchain applications.

The goal of the competition is simple and revolves around a popular game dating back to World War I: Battleship. Battleship originated as a pen and paper game, but most people are more familiar with the tabletop board game version:

Participants will be tasked with programming an AI that can challenge, and be challenged, by other players in a traditional game of Battleship. The program should accept the address of another program as a parameter in order to start the game. It must also accept the “START” command when another program requests to begin a game.

The game is played on a 10x10 grid with horizontal columns of “A” through “J”, and vertical columns of “1” through “10”.

Each cell on the grid has an alphanumeric coordinate, for example “A5”, which represents the first column and the fifth row down on the grid.

The game has two players, each of whom control the placement of 10 ships (4 ships two cells long, 3 ships three cells long, 2 ships four cells long, and 1 ship five cells long).

On each player’s turn, they specify a cell on the grid that they wish to attack. Once the cell is chosen by the player, their opponent notifies them if the attack hit one of their battleships or not.

Once all 10 ships belonging to a player have been sunk, their opponent has won the game.

Creating the AI Program:

  1. Every program should implement a method accept_move(adversary_id: &Pubkey, command: number, row:number, col:number) -> u8.
  2. Commands are encoded the following way: 0 — START, 1 — SHOOT.
  3. If SHOOT is received: The command method returns a 0 if it is a MISS, or returns 1 if it is a HIT. If all ships are already destroyed, the method should return a 2 (END) and adversaryid program is considered the winner.
  4. Every program should implement a method makeMove(adversary_id: &Pubkey) which computes and makes the next move for a given adversary. For the first command, it should initiate a session with the START command. If the last result received was END, it must receive a START command argument to initiate a new game.
  5. Every program should implement a method check_id(id: &Pubkey) -> u8, which returns the result of the last executed move.

Each participant’s program will be uploaded to the Solana devnet, and they will submit a link to the github repository and a link to the deployed program.

On August 7, 2022, the Game Committee will communicate on the official Telegram chat for the battles and notify participants. A tournament bracket will be made to establish the match-ups of the battles.

Once the battle begins, the participants will begin to compete head to head and once the battles conclude the three participants with the most battles won will be deemed the winners.

To sign up, fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/222084434379055

For any questions regarding the battles, please contact us via telegram: https://t.me/Contact_BeringWaters

Visit The Battle page: https://tech.beringwaters.com/battleship/

About Bering Waters University
Bering Waters University is a program designed to train recent graduates for software engineer careers to become experts in blockchain. The first iteration of the program is focused on the Solana ecosystem for smart contract and platform development. Shortlisted candidates who successfully complete the purpose-built training curriculum are offered opportunities to work across the Solana ecosystem. While working in fields of specialization chosen during the course, the graduates will be involved in some of the most exciting projects in the industry. Bering Waters University is a project under the umbrella of Bering Waters Tech.

About Bering Waters Tech
Founded in 2020, Bering Waters Tech is a technology development and advisory business cooperating in strategic ways with Bering Waters Group portfolio companies. Within the partnerships, it is responsible for strategic placements of developer resources to solve the tech-talent shortage, accelerate product timelines, and create in-house innovative solutions and technologies.

Where to Find Us:
Blog: https://bering-waters.medium.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Bering_Waters
Telegram Public Channel: https://t.me/beringwaters_public
Email: contact@beringwaters.com
Telegram DMs: https://t.me/Contact_BeringWaters
Website: www.beringwaters.com

--

--

Bering Waters Group

Bering Waters Group specializes in blockchain projects with untapped potential. It comprises of three industry leading businesses-OTC Desk, Ventures, and Tech.