Hi All,<div> The previous Queens challenge went down a treat, and it reminded me of the old kids game 'Connect4'.</div><div>Now I'd like to propose a new challenge of making a Connect4 playing robot...</div><div>
<br></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">There will be many prizes and categories will be created on a whim.<br>
There will be prizes for at least the following categories:<br><br></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">* Best mechanical / embedded solution<br>
* Smartest playing<br>* Best playing without using recursion<br>* Non-programming solutions??</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">* Best Connect4 server</span></div>
<div><br></div><div>Background:</div><div>Connect4 is played on 7(across) by 6(high) rack where tokens are inserted at the top and they fall down into the rack. The players take turns, trying to make 4 of their token line-up horizontally, vertically or diagonally.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Server:</div><div>Thinking it would be fun to compete with each other by making the program as a client/server application. Thoughts so far go as follows:</div><div>* Someone writes a open/common TCP network wrapper.</div>
<div>Pier-to-pier</div><div>* We have a list of IP addresses </div><div>* Open an TCP connection starts a new game.</div><div>* Computer opening the connection gets the choice of whether they want to start.</div><div>* An ascii string is passed indicating the game.</div>
<div>* First character in string indicates the command:</div><div> s = Connecting computer wants other to start</div><div> 1 = </div><div> * = This is my move and I've won</div><div> </div><div>* A move string (ascii) of numbers 1-7 is passed indicating the columns the tokens have been so far.</div>
<div>For those who rather write software and let someone else</div><div><br></div>