Published on: 22 February 2018


Over 1000 teams battled it out at this year’s Battlecode competition, MIT’s premier programming event. Year 11 Christ Church student Marcus Handley and team entered the US based competition, taking out second place in the finals and winning a shared prize of $6174 USD.

“The organiser noted that this year’s competition had more team entries than ever before. The competition was sponsored by a range of leading US tech companies which afforded me the opportunity to meet with several of the sponsors and discuss potential internships in the coming year,” says Marcus.

“I also took the opportunity to attend an information session and tours for Harvard and MIT. The MIT tour and information sessions were very interesting, and MIT’s research and inter-disciplinary focused approach is very appealing to me.”

Battlecode is a unique challenge that combines battle strategy, software engineering and artificial intelligence. Teams comprising of one to four members then compete for a chance at $50,000 in prizes. Battlecode is open to anyone to participate, ranging all the way from beginners through to experts.

Major sponsors of Battlecode include Facebook, Oracle, and Coatue.