Last night I received an email from my friend over in Redmond,  Todd Biggs, who tells me that they are running a MSN Bot competition.

I have talked about bots in the past and regularly discuss the idea with partners and customers when I meet with them.  This competition is going to be a great opportunity to show off what is possible with a bit of programming knowledge and an SDK.

The competition involves downloading an SDK, building your robot and then registering the robot with Microsoft (the latter of which is done but adding a specific contact to Windows Live Messenger and registering your details with one of our bots – how cool is that!).

The prizes are as follows

• Grand Prize – Alienware MJ-12 7550 Workstation worth $10,000 USD
• 1st Prize – Bose Lifestyle 48 DVD Home Entertainment System worth $5,000 USD
• 5 x 2nd Prize – Alienware Sentia M3200 System,  backpack and $200 Think Geek certificate
• 10 x 3rd Prize – Garmin Nuvi 360 sat nav systems worth $1,000 USD
• Users Choice Award – 80GB USB Portable drive,  DX1 Input System and LED Binary Watch worth $500 USD

No matter whether you are looking to create a bot or just interested in seeing what is possible,  go along to http://www.robotinvaders.com/ and spend some time looking round the site.

Competition ends September 15th so get coding !