Getting started · about 5 minutes
Put your first robot in the arena
Make a robot, run it against a practice opponent, then change how it moves. You need a modern browser and a Clunkyard account. No downloads or programming experience required.
In Clunkyard, you write instructions for a robot, called a bot. It drives, scans for opponents and fires on its own. Your job is to watch what happens and improve its instructions.
1. Create a starter bot
Open My bots. If prompted, sign in or create an account first. Choose New bot, give it a name such as Tin Scout, and keep vane — starter as its language. Choose Create.
Vane is a small language made for robot tactics. Your workspace opens with a ready-to-use starter in bot.vane and a settings file, bot.json. Keep both files.
2. Save your starting point
Choose Save revision. A revision is a saved snapshot of your project. Wait for the saved-revision message; Choose opponent becomes available.
3. Run a practice match
Choose Choose opponent. Set Execution to This browser · DSL, Mode to 2D, and Rules to Classic. The opponent is Yardstick · built-in Vane. Enter 42 for the seed, then choose Run locally.
Dent's tip
A seed fixes the match's starting conditions so you can repeat an experiment. This practice runs on your device and does not affect rankings. You can skip Build for this browser match.
4. Watch what your bot does
A replay opens. Watch your bot move and look for shots. The starter searches while roaming; when its scanner finds an opponent, it aims and fires. A match can end in a win, loss or draw. Getting a working robot into a match is your first success.
5. Change one instruction and try again
Choose ← Project above the replay, then Improve this revision to return to editing. Open bot.vane in the file list. In the rule roam section, change turn 0.25 to turn 0.5. Leave the other lines alone. This asks the robot to turn more strongly while searching.
Choose Save revision, then Choose opponent and run the same 2D Classic browser match with seed 42. Compare its path with the first run. Does the tighter turn help it find or avoid its opponent? Change one value at a time so you can see what mattered.