Cmput 455 — Search, Knowledge, and Simulations, Winter 2021

Help and References, General

• University of Alberta important links. Crisis Help, academic schedule, policies, etc.

• Course outline
• Course policies
• Teaching team
• Course site on eclass, for quizzes, exams, assignment submission, forum, announcements, and readings
• Assignments
  • Assignment 1
  • Assignment 2
  • Assignment 3
  • Assignment 4
• Activities
• Learning resources
• Python 3 Sample Code
• Python 3 Language, Install,...
• Python 3 for Cmput 455 Bootcamp/Refresher

455 Week by Week

Week 1, Jan 11 – Jan 15

• Assignment 1: due Feb 1
• Slides:
• Lecture 1 - The game of Go and Computer Go
• Lecture 2 - Basic Data Structures and Algorithms for Computer Go
• Do Quiz 0 and 1 on eClass
• Activities: Do the Lecture 1 Activities and Lecture 2 Activities

Week 2, Jan 18 – Jan 22

• Assignment 1: due Feb 1
• Quiz 2: on eClass. Please read "Reinforcement Renaissance" by Krakovsky (in activities)
• Slides:
• Lecture 3 - Problem solving and Decision-making
• Lecture 4 - Formalizing decision-making and games
• Activities: Do the Lecture 3 Activities and Lecture 4 Activities

Week 3, Jan 25 – Jan 29

• Assignment 1: due Feb 1
• Quiz 3: on eClass
• Slides:
• Lecture 5 - Sequential Decision-making
• Lecture 6 - Preparing for Search - Profiling and Optimizing Go Code
• Activities: Do the Lecture 5 Activities and Lecture 6 Activities

Week 4, Feb 1 – Feb 5

• Assignment 1: due Feb 1
• Start on Assignment 2
• Do Quiz 4 on eClass
• Slides:
• Lecture 7 - Introduction to Search and Heuristic Search
• Lecture 7 extras (optional) - more on blind search and single-agent heuristic search
• Lecture 8 - Minimax and Alphabeta part 1
• Lots of new Activities: Do the Lecture 7 Activities and Lecture 8 Activities
• Lots of new Code: Python code Go2, Assignment 2 starter code, Lecture 7 and 8 sample codes

Week 5, Feb 8 – Feb 12

• Assignment 2: due Mar 1
• Do Quiz 5 on eClass
• Slides:
• Lecture 9 - Minimax and Alphabeta Part 2
• Lecture 10 - Minimax and Alphabeta Part 3
• Activities: Do the Lecture 9 Activities and Lecture 10 Activities
• Code: see all the minimax Python code for Lecture 9 and 10

Reading week, Feb 15 – Feb 19

• Assignment 2: due Mar 1

Week 6, Feb 22 – Feb 26

• Assignment 2: due Mar 1
• Do Quiz 6 on eClass
• Slides:
• Lecture 11 - Knowledge for Heuristic Search
• Lecture 12 - Simulations in Game Tree Search
• Activities for Lecture 11: just reading
• Code: no new code this week, review previous code for midterm. Code for L12 will be uploaded next week.

Week 7 Mar 1 – Mar 5

• Midterm Mar 2
• Assignment 2: due Mar 1
• Do Quiz 7 on eClass
• Slides:
• Lecture 13 - Simulations in Go, patterns and filters
• Lots of new Activities: for Lecture 12, no activities for L13
• Lots of Code: Lecture 12 demos and experiments, Tic-Tac-Toe with simulations, and Go3

Week 8, Mar 8 – Mar 12

• Assignment 3: due Mar 29
• Quiz 8 on eClass
• Slides:
• Lecture 14 - Probabilistic Simulation Policies
• Lecture 15 - Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) Part 1
• Activities for Lecture 14
• Code: see Python code

Week 9, Mar 15 – Mar 19

• Assignment 3: due Mar 29
• Do Quiz 9 on eClass
• Slides:
• Lecture 16 - MCTS Part 2
• Reading for Lecture 16
• No new code this week

Week 10, Mar 22 – Mar 26

• Assignment 3: due Mar 29
• Do Quiz 10 on eClass
• Slides:
• Lecture 17 - Introduction to Machine Learning for Heuristic Search
• Lecture 18 - Machine Learning with Simple Features and Move Prediction in Go
• Reading and Activities for Lecture 18
• Code for Go4 and Go5.

Week 11, Mar 29 – Mar 31

• Assignment 4: due Apr 21
• Quiz 10 on eClass
• Do Quiz 11 on eClass
• Slides:
• Lecture 19 - Introduction to Neural Networks
• Lecture 20 - Deep Neural Networks for Move Prediction in Go
• Reading and Activities for Lecture 19
• New Code: see Python code for neural nets

Week 12, Apr 7 – Apr 9

• Assignment 4 due Apr 21
• Do Quiz 12 on eClass
• Slides:
• Lecture 21 - Reinforcement Learning and TD-Gammon
• Lecture 22 - AlphaGo - The Early Versions
• Activities: Watch Rich Sutton's RL tutorial (links in eClass)

Week 13, Apr 12 – Apr 16

• Assignment 4 due Apr 21
• Do Quiz 13 on eClass
• Slides:
• Lecture 23 - AlphaGo Zero
• Lecture 24 - AlphaZero

Created: Oct 2, 2017 Last modified: Jan 8, 2021

Martin Müller, Ting-Han Wei, and James Wright