Development environment for digital curling and implementation of a curler client in Python

Abstract

Curling is so strategic that it is called ”chess on ice,” and has an element of uncertainty due to the changing conditions on the ice. In this study, we implemented a client development environment in Python for digital curling, which is used to study the strategy of curling. The conventional client development environment was implemented in C++, but Python leads in terms of readability and the richness of the library for machine learning. In addition, with the version change, changes were made to the means of communication and the content of communication in digital curling. Whereas in previous versions, both server and client had to be prepared within a single PC, the new version allows communication between server and client in remote locations. Based on these changes, we implemented a development environment for the client and distributed this development environment on GitHub and PyPI. This is expected to contribute to improving the level of the thinking engine.