Dear all,

the Multi-Agent Programming Contest 2010 Edition is over!

We the organizers are happy to announce this years' winner!

Congratulations to the team

Brainbug (JIAC V)


The team consisting of Fabian Linges, Sönke Sieckmann, Erik Stürmer, Jonathan Ziller and Axel Heßler of Technische Universität Berlin, Germany were able to get 57 points.

They achieved almost 190 cow-average points. Well done!

Here are the results of all teams:

During the week we ran 28 matches with all in all 84 simulations.

Thanks to everyone that has participated! You have stimulated research in the field of Multi-Agent Systems Programming!

And of course, we should not forget the price! The winning team will get 500 EUR from Springer Verlag to buy books.

To download all files, see all videos etc. click on "read more".

Dear participants,

the registration for the multi-agent programming contest is now open!

Please download the registration template and follow the instructions therein.

Download Participation Registration Template

File Version: 2010 Downloads: 230

We are happy to announce that the MASSim-software-package has been released! You can access it here:

Download massim-2010-07-29.tar.bz2

File Version: Downloads: 514

If you have any problems please contact us immediately. Although we tried hard on making the software package as bug-free as possible we cannot be absolutely sure and therefore would be grateful if you would report us any bugs.

The preparations for the next Multi-Agent Programming Contest 2010 are almost completed. If you are interested please state your intent to participate by subscribing to the mailing list now. Below you can find the important dates:

Long term aim

The Multi-Agent Programming Contest (AgentContest) strives to stimulate research in the area of multi-agent system development and programming by

1. identifying key problems in the field and
2. collecting suitable benchmarks that can serve as milestones for testing multi-agent programming languages, platforms and tools.

Through a constant AgentContest evolution based on the past organization experience, the AgentContest organizing bodies aim to contribute to the exploration and thus advance the understanding of this research field.

Steering Committee

The Steering Committee's main task is to collect and maintain the know how of the AgentContest organization. It overlooks the AgentContest edition organization and advises the organizing committee in order to
ensure persistent striving for the long-term aims.

Tasks and competences

In particular, the steering committee:

1. regularly appoints an Organizing Committee for the upcoming edition of the AgentContest;
2. advises the Organizing Committee in issues of AgentContest scenario design and provides guidance regarding the administrative and organisational issues of the AgentContest organization;
3. overlooks the organisation and if needed, it has a right to step into it in order to resolve critical issues of technical, planning and social nature which might arise. This will be done in a sensitive manner and only in a minimal required extent;
4. helps the Oroganizing Committee to liase with finding a workshop or conference with which the AgentContest can be asociated;
5. collects and maintains the know-how about operational issues regarding organization of AgentContest. If needed, the Steering Committee can ask the Organizing Committee to prepare and submit an informal report summarizing the experience with organization of the corresponding AgentContest edition;
6. owns, manages and maintains the Internet domain name for the AgentContest WWW presentation.

Membership

The Steering Committee consists of senior community members who participated in the AgentContest organization in the past. Any changes of the membership underlie a 2/3 majority vote of the current Steering Committee members.

Voting and decision making

As a rule, the Steering Committee should strive for unanimous decision making. If this is not possible, except for the membership issues (as regulated above), the general rule is the simple majority vote.

Organization Committee

The Organization Committee takes care for the operational aspects of the AgentContest organization. It is appointed by the Steering Committee for the purpose of organizing the single upcoming edition of the AgentContest, possibly associated with another workshop or conference.

Tasks and competences

In particular, the Organizing Committee:

1. formulates and implements the detailed AgentContest edition scenario in a manner respecting the overall aims of the AgentContest;
2. formulates the organization schedule and takes care of the overall submission and publication process, as well as all the announcements relevant to the AgentContest edition;
3. optionally, in cooperation with the Steering Committee it issues and delivers a prize to the AgentContest edition winners;
4. after the end of the AgentContest edition prepares and publishes a public report of the Contest which should be reviewed and archived by the Steering Committee;
5. if requested by the Steering Committee, the Organization Committee prepares a written report regarding the experience with organizing the actual AgentContest edition;
6. technically secures the WWW presentation of the Contest edition on the AgentContest WWW home page.

Appointing the Organization Committee

The Steering Committee appoints the Organization Committee in a timely fashion, in order to enable proper AgentContest edition organization. As of a rule, the Organization Committee should consists of at least one member of the Steering Committee and one or more chosen members of the research community. The joint member of the Organization and the Steering Committee should act as the senior/team leader of the organizing team.

• Mehdi Dastani, Utrecht University,
• Jürgen Dix, Clausthal University of Technology,
• Peter Novák, Czech Technical University.

• Mehdi Dastani, Utrecht University,
• Jürgen Dix, Clausthal University of Technology,
• Peter Novák, Czech Technical University.

The archive is semi-public. That means, it is accessible to list subscribers. The link is as follows:

https://mail.in.tu-clausthal.de/Lists/agentcontest2010/List.html?Language=english

In order to login, you need to provide your e-mail address with which you are subscribed to the list and the confirmation ID. You get the confirmation ID in the confirmation e-mail right after you subscribed.
In the case you do not have that e-mail any more, simply send an arbitrary e-mail to

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

In return the system will send you confirmation ID which you can use to login.

The contest scenario consists of developing a multi-agent system to solve a cooperative task in a dynamic environment. The environment is a grid-like world in which virtual cows are moving around collectively in one or more herds exhibiting a swarm-like behavior. There are two corrals, each belongs to one of the two agent teams. The teams of agents compete to control the behavior of animals and lead them to their own corral. The winning agent team is the one that scores highest. A detailed scenario description of the scenario will be available in time.

• Tristan M. Behrens,Clausthal University of Technology,
• Jürgen Dix, Clausthal University of Technology,
• Jomi Hübner, Federal University of Santa Catarina,
• Michael Köster, Clausthal University of Technology.

• Tristan M. Behrens,Clausthal University of Technology,
• Jürgen Dix, Clausthal University of Technology,
• Jomi Hübner, Federal University of Santa Catarina,
• Michael Köster, Clausthal University of Technology.

This competition is an attempt to stimulate research in the area of multi-agent system development and programming by

1. identifying key problems,
2. collecting suitable benchmarks, and
3. gathering test cases which require and enforce coordinated action

The performance of a particular system will be determined in a series of games where the systems compete against each other. While winning the competition is not the main point, we hope it will shed light on the applicability of certain frameworks to particular domains.