I'm pretty sure 6.370 was inspired by 6.270. It was intended to be a more "pure" programming competition, without all the intrusions of finicky physical reality.

Similarly, 6.186 (better known now as MASLab) was also inspired by 6.270, but diverged in the opposite direction: more ambitious physical designs (no legos), more computational capacity, richer sensors (it's mostly vision-based), etc.

The three competitions span a pretty nice continuum.

Apologies. I think I just accidentally downvoted you.

There's a whole series of them now actually. 6.470 is a web programming competition, 6.570 is an Android App competition, and we (MakeGamesWithUs YCW12) are helping set up 6.670, an iPhone game programming competition. I'll be giving the first lecture to 80 students tomorrow :)

Sounds like all kinds of fun (and late nights) can be had.

Thanks to all the answers in this subthread for the current info.

6.270 was a lego robot building competition during IAP. Is it not still around?

6.270 is alive and kicking. This year's website can be found here http://scripts.mit.edu/~6.270/

Really? My memory must be fuzzy, ISTR it was a coding exercise, at least in the 80s.

The memory is the first thing to go, etc etc.

EDIT: It was indeed robots from the beginning (1987). http://perspective.mit.edu/about/history.shtml