Grand Theft Autonomous
Sole designer and engineer
Grand Theft Autonomous was the robotics finale of a programming curriculum and the event at VESL's state competition in May 2026. Competitors stack code blocks into a mission program, test it in the simulator, then send the same program to a real SunFounder Zeus car that drives a grid "Smart City": collect coins, avoid the cops, and get back to the vault. I built the app on my own, and it ran the training, the testing, and the competition itself.
- Heat length
- 3 min
- Competition map
- 9×9
- Team size
- 1
What it's built with
The problem
Students who had learned programming logic in drag-and-drop games needed a way to program real cars at a live, judged state event.
What I built
One app that is both the practice simulator and the event's operator and scoring console, sending the same block program to the simulator and to the car.
The impact
Ran the training, the testing, and the competition at the state robotics event.
What stood out
- A drag-and-drop block editor with if/else, repeat, and sensor conditions, run by a deterministic interpreter, so the simulator and the car execute the same program.
- Sends programs to the car and drives it live over WebSocket, with gamepad driving for practice.
- Judge scoring by coin value (+10, +25, +50) with a −5 penalty for hitting a cop, 180-second heats, heat replay, and a live sensor strip.
- Spec tests that keep the scoring and the map's fairness rules honest.