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# System prepended metadata

title: Battlesnake Plan

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# Battlesnake Plan

## Date: February 17th-18th, 2023

### General Information

There will only be one main tournament. Students can follow different workshops that will suit them.

One big change that we've made to the schedule is making day 1 hybrid, and only several hours. It will take place on a Friday, and will just consist of workshops to help prep people for the event, and hype people up. There are several benefits to this:

- We can still have a 2-day event with less overhead on the first day
- People tend to already be on campus on Friday, so coming to some workshops in the evening isn't so bad
- There aren't classes at Carleton after 6 on Fridays
- This can front-load a lot of the pre-requisite knowledge before the big in-person day

This will then allow us to have a large single in-person day that will consist of making snakes, social events, and the tournament. This will also align much better with the projected budget, and allow for a good amount going toward both prizes and food.

### Day 1 (hybrid)

A few things to note about day 1. Several workshops can be given to start teaching people about Battlesnake, languages, strategies, and how Battlesnake is working under the hood. There are 2 blocks of workshops, taking 1:15 and 1:00 respectively. They're broken up by a social event. The evening ends with a game night. In-person, this will see board games provided by the Carleton Strategy Club, and online will be facilitated on Board Game Arena (or alternatives).

The workshops will be recorded and accessible for students online on the second day. This will mean that students who can only participate on the Saturday can still know what they're doing, and have more resources available to help them.

Also, once we get to 9 PM, we'll make sure to promptly end the evening. This is not only to encourage healthy hacking but also to make sure we get as much attendance the next day as possible.

#### Tentative Schedule:

**5PM - 9PM? (times to be finalized)**
- (5:30PM - 6:00PM) "What is Battlesnake?" Workshop + strategies
- (6:00PM - 6:30PM) Intro to Coding in Python Workshop
- (6:00PM - 6:30PM) Intro to Coding in JS Workshop
- (6:30PM - 7:00PM) Intro to HTTP and Web Servers/Backend Development
- (7:00PM - 7:30PM) Speed-Friending (online) / Networking ice breaker (in person)
- (7:30PM - 8:30PM) Game Night/Social Event

### Day 2 (in-person)

Day 2 will be our big day with everyone coming out. It will be quite long, but it shouldn't be asking too much of people, since it's only a single day of the weekend. It will start with a large opening ceremony, followed by the opening of the workrooms. There will be several social events during the day to allow for breaks between work.

Since this is the main in person day, there will be a bit of food in the morning, a larger lunch, and then some food for the end of the day.

Toward the end of the day, the tournament will take place. We're aiming to have a large auditorium booked for the event, and invite others that may not have wanted to participate in the event itself. This will hopefully target students who live on campus, and might be inclined to just come out for part of the day. Hopefully, seeing the tournament will excite and encourage them to participate in future Battlesnake events.

We also want to make sure the tournament is streamed to our YouTube and Twitch (or Battlesnake's Twitch) so that others can tune in remotely.

#### Tentative Schedule

**10AM - 6PM? (again, times to be finalized)**
- (9:30 - 10) Registration
- (10AM - 10:30AM) Opening Ceremonies
- (10:30AM) Work rooms open
- (11:00AM - 11:30AM) "Guess that Song" Challenge
- (12:00PM - 1:00PM) Lunch
- (12:45PM - 1:45PM) CCSS Amazing Race 2.0, or some other type of fun activity
- (2:00PM - 2:30PM) Intro to Deployment Workshop
- (3:00PM) Submission Deadline (Snake and other challenges)
- (3:00PM - 3:30PM) Logistics period
- (3:30PM - 5:30PM) Tournament
    - Notes: How long should this be? How many teams should we plan for? How are other events planning for this?
    - 32 teams x 2 brackets x 4 players?
- (5:30PM - 6:00PM) Awards Ceremony + Closing Ceremony

### Other Challenges

- Bounty Snake(s) (perhaps multiple levels)
- Branding Challenge (which snake has the best branding, logo + slogan, perhaps a theme song?)
- Backstory Challenge (which snake has the best backstory)
- Fan Favourite

### Prizes and Other Goodies

For prizes, we'll need to make sure that there are at least 4 at each tier so that a full team of 4 gets prizes. For now, we should imagine the prize cost will be in the range of $500 - $1000. There should be prizes for at least 4 teams (for up to the top 2 in each bracket).

Prizes will be given out during the Awards Ceremony, allowing for a good separation between the battles and the prizes won.

- Battlesnake Swag
    - Custom heads/tails for Battlesnake? Something raven-related would be really neat!
- Computer Peripherals (Keyboards, Headsets, etc.)
- Gift Cards
- Small Prizes (cool stickers, small gadgets, etc.)