The Third Annual ACM UIST User Interface Design Contest

We're sorry to announce that this year's UI Design Contest has been cancelled.  UIST is evaluating what type of contest, if any, would be an effective way of showcasing UI software and technology innovation at UIST 2004.  If you have opinions on this matter, please contact Kathy Ryall or David McGee.  

Contest Overview


Objective

Contestants in the UIST 2003 Interface Design Contest will have an opportunity to design and implement an interface to a real-time game application prior to the symposium. The game has been designed to accommodate a wide range of possible interfaces. During the competition contestants will use their interfaces to play the game against other contestants in a tournament. Audience members will also get to play entrants' interfaces. The goal of the contest is to encourage participants to explore interface software and technology in an applied setting, and to provide an opportunity for participants to showcase their work to the UIST community in an exciting and entertaining format.

Game Description
This year's contest will involve a simple soccer game very loosely based on Robocup. Each contestant will control a team of five players on a soccer field. Rather than competing against an AI team, contestants will play against each other, with each contestant using his own interface to control his players on the soccer field. Audience members will also compete using the entrants' interfaces.

A game server will keep track of the game state, run the game simulation, and render the game visualization (shown above). Client programs,  written by the contestants, will communicate with the server by sending UDP/IP datagrams over the local area network. The server will broadcast the state of the soccer field back to all of the connected clients.

Although the game server runs only on the Windows platform, client implementations are platform independent. Sample client implementations are provided in Java, in C on the Unix platform, and in C++ on the Windows platform. Any language and platform capable of UDP network communication can be used to communicate with the game server.

Tournament Details
The goal of the design contest is to design the best interface you can for the soccer game, and then to use your interface in competition with other design teams who will use their own interfaces. Novice users from the audience will also compete using your interface.

Participants are encouraged to develop original UI techniques and/or devices to gain a competitive advantage. Novel visualizations of the game situation; pen-based input techniques; two-handed input techniques; PDA-based multi-user interfaces; incorporating various forms of artificial intelligence into the interface: these ideas and more are all appropriate for inclusion in your UI design. The only requirement is that your UI communicate with the game application through the network communication protocol described in the user guide below.

New this year, audience members will be invited to compete using the contestant interfaces as well. So even if you don't enter an interface, be sure to come and tryout the contestants' interfaces!

Tournament specifics (e.g., competition format, prize categories, etc.) will be provided in September. A minimum of $1000 in prizes will be awarded.

How to Enter

To enter the design contest, please send an e-mail to Kathy Ryall (ryall@merl.com) and include:

E-mail must be received by Friday, September 19, 2003.

Please note that the contest entry is separate from the conference registration. We encourage contest participants to take advantage of UIST early registration (deadline September 24).

All entrants must be registered for the conference in order to be eligible to compete in the design contest.


Contest Logistics
Contestants are required to be present at the conference and to provide all hardware and software required for running their interface and for connecting it to the wireless (802.11b) LAN. A limited number of 802.11b PC cards and USB adapters will be available, but contestants are urged to bring their own, as we do not have enough to accommodate all of the contestants.

The standard setup for each team in the contest is a table (approx 4'x2.5'), two chairs, and one power strip. There will NOT be internet connections available. If your team has special requirements, please note this on the entry form.

The contest will be held during the 16th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST 2003), to be held in Vancouver, Canada from November 2-5, 2003. The contest will be held on Sunday, November 2, 2003 with the preliminary rounds during the day, and the final round held during the opening reception. Contestants should plan to arrive at the conference center by 1pm on Sunday. Additional details will be announced in the September 2003, including the time and location of the preliminary rounds.

Reference Implementations

Several reference implementations have been provided to help you get started with the game and to demonstrate how to communicate with the game server; they are not intended to be examples of good interfaces -- we leave that to you! There is one Java implementation, one implementation written on C for Unix platforms, and one implementation written in C++ for the Windows platform. The source code for all of these implementations is packaged in a ZIP file that can be downloaded below. Also available for download are the game server binaries (Windows only) and a user guide describing the game rules and the network communication protocol.

 Downloads
Changes to the server or reference implementations may be made if required. Please revisit this page periodically to check for updated files.


Contact
For general information about the contest, including registration, scheduling, and logistics, contact Kathy Ryall (ryall@merl.com).

For questions regarding game rules, communication with the game server, reference implementations, or bug reports, contact Dan Maynes-Aminzade (monzy@mit.edu).

We look forward to seeing you and your interfaces in Vancouver!