AI contest

If you are interested in game programming and AI, you might want to take a look at the AI ants challenge. It is a challenge sponsored by google, and this is the presentation of the contest by the official website :

The AI Challenge is all about creating artificial intelligence, whether you are a beginning programmer or an expert. 

All you have to do is pick your favourite programming language. There is already about 20 of the most popular languages, and the contest organizers are willing to add another ones if they receive requests on the forum. Once you know what programming language you are going to use, you can download the tools that will help you in your quest, and then download the starter kit for that language. The game engine is written in python, so you'll need to install python on your computer. Don't worry if you don't know any python at all, you don't need to. As for the installation of python, it's pretty straightforward. If you are on a Linux machine, it should be installed already. If you are on windows, you can download a windows installer which will do the work for you, or you can use cygwin.

You should participate regardless of your level. You could get a good rank in the leader board, which will look good on your resume, but even if you don't, it was a good learning opportunity, and you'll have some prerequisites for future contests.

Good luck everyone!