Rather the KobiYashi Maru of robotics, no?  

Were this a real battle (to the death?) between real fully-formed AIs, such hacking should be expected. So what you did was in-part assisting your bot.  But it was still cheating. ;)  (Had I done the same and been caught I would've been expelled.  Kudos for being lucky and/or having an understanding teacher.  And for sticking to your design in the first place, despite ultimately cheating.)

I wonder if you would've been caught had you not put the terminal spam in there....  Or would the other students kept on scratching their heads and blaming their own borrowed designs?

Bending the rules? By modifying the environment so you would win? Sure, it's fun to get back at those cheaters but you were just cheating on a whole new level... And how did you get the competition to use your environment jar?

We played on a computer in the classroom. Just modified the one on that computer.

At least they learned something while they were doing it. :)

As a high school teacher, i predict a person with hacker style as you is on the way to a bright future. Good luck. :)

The ethics part of me just raised a flag. The hacker part of me salutes you :)