It’s only two weeks to AWS re:Invent, the best place to be with a head in the cloud.
You’ll get to learn all the new releases, do the workshops, gather some serious amount of swag and most of all, DeepRacer.
We’re back to racing in person, we’ve got the workshops, we’ve got ideas to share. Learn all the details on where the DeepRacing action will happen and how you can join!
AWS DeepRacer
AWS DeepRacer is a 1/18th scale autonomous race car but also much more. It is a complete program that has helped thousands of employees in numerous organizations begin their educational journey into machine learning through fun and rivalry.
Visit AWS DeepRacer page to learn more about how it can help you and your organization begin and progress the journey towards machine learning.
Join the AWS Machine Learning Community to talk to people who have used DeepRacer in their learning experience.
DeepRacer brings together great people, sparks creativity, boosts the passion for learning together while giving some awesome rewards. You can try just a little bit of it and have fun at your company or you can go full in, join the community and race for the top prizes. It has a special place at re:Invent so read on and find out how you can join the racing madness.
Racing
You’ll have multiple chances to watch and join the racing at re:Invent. Let’s start with the championships. Not just because I like to blabber about “DeepRacer this, DeepRacer that, oh, have I mentioned DeepRacer?”. You can join the championships if you’re at re:Invent.
You can also win an AWS Winners Circle Driving Experience at Las Vegas Motorsports Park on December 1, 2022 at 3:00 pm PST. This goes out to best racers in the championships and five lucky ones in Open Races, Arcade Races and Swami’s Keynote (Terms and Conditions apply).
Championships
There are multiple rounds happening. if you haven’t qualified yet, you’ll want to participate in the Wildcards race. But let’s do it all in order. The championship races will be taking place on Monday and Tuesday with the final race being presented at the Data/ML Keynote with Swami on Wednesday.
If you can’t make it in person, check out AWS Twitch channel during the racing hours to see the action live from Las Vegas. All hours are in Pacific Time Zone (PST).
Round one
When: Monday 10:00am – 4:00pm
Where: Test Tracks at the MGM Grand Conference Center
Who: 50 racers who have qualified into the championships will race to determine the top 30 who will progress to round two.
Each racer will have two attempts, 3 minutes each.
You can join to watch the racers but I recommend that you leave a little early to enter the Expo space at the Venetian at 4:00 pm.
Wildcard race
When: Monday 4:00pm – 7:00pm
Where: Sands Expo, Venetian. Right in the center, where all the action belongs.
Who: YOU. And a few more racers. Likely many. Potentially with the twenty from Round one who didn’t qualify were lucky enough to get some more racing on Monday. Top 2 in the leaderboard will join the Top 30 from round one the following day.
You’ll get one try, 2 minutes, to show what you’ve got. This is a physical time trial race on the 2022 re:Invent Championship track, participants are expected to bring their models which they will upload to the cars through a submissions web service which will be made available to them at the track. USB sticks with models can be used to upload the models on hardware made available to participants at the venue but having your own laptop to upload is recommended.
A hint: Show up before 4:00pm and wait for a bit. In 2019 the queue for the wildcard race was full after a few minutes.
Even if you don’t intend to race, come over, let’s have some chats, let’s have some fun!
Round two
When: Tuesday 11:00am – 2:00pm
Where: Sands Expo, Venetian
Who: The 32 racers. They will race in a single elimination competition to select the fastest eight to make it into Round three
You’ll be able to join and cheer and have fun with racers and the community racers. Great opportunity to ask questions.
Round three
When: Tuesday 3:00pm – 6:00pm
Where: Sands Expo, Venetian
Who: The top 8 racers. They will race in a double elimination competition to select the fastest three to fight for the big prizes.
Fun fact: racers in places 4-6 will win $1000 each.
Finals
Before the KEY003, Swami Sivasubramanian Keynote
When: Wednesday 8:00 (30 minutes before the Keynote)
Where: Level 2, Ballroom F, Venetian
Who: The top 3 finalists
These folks will have some serious prizes to fight for:
- 3rd racer wins $2000 and a AWS Winners Circle Driving Experience
- 2nd racer wins $5000 and a AWS Winners Circle Driving Experience
- 1st racer wins $10000, a trophy and a AWS Winners Circle Driving Experience
Staying for the Keynote also means that you will enter a sweepstake for AWS Winners Circle Driving Experience!
Racing for fun
Virtual race
Even now you can join the virtual race 2022 re:Invent Warm Up(link will take you to the AWS Console) – it gives you a chance to see what the championships racers will be up against at re:Invent. The race is open to everyone and
Participants of the virtual race will receive a virtual prize – an exciting custom re:Invent car shell in the simulator.
Open races
Apart from the championships the tracks will be available for you to try your models. Make sure you train a model and race on track to enter a leaderboard by 4:00pm on Wednesday – two lucky people will be randomly selected to also take part in the AWS Winners Circle Driving Experience.
Arcades
Finally, the arcades – folks at AWS have build some great DeepRacer arcade games where you can race a car on a track and your time enters the leaderboard. They will be available all at the Expo and at the AWS DeepRacer Test Tracks at the MGM Grand Conference Center Monday-Wednesday.
Also race before 4:00pm Wednesday as two random people are selected and win the AWS Winners Circle Driving Experience in Las Vegas.
Workshops and Sessions
There are three groups of DeepRacer sessions at the conference, described below.
Get started with racing
This is how many of us have begun in 2018 – by joining one of the workshops allowing us to clock in a few hours of training in the console to try them on the track. DPR202 “AWS DeepRacer: Get hands-on with machine learning” are multiple workshop sessions with a well-tested format. You will be introduced to Reinforcement Learning, you will follow the instructions and see a car you’ve trained go around the track. I can highly recommend reserving a seat in one of them, or queue up by the door to join them. You’ll be able to try out a few things and then to get in touch if the racers to get some extra advice.
Note: the workshop sessions usually get fully booked quickly, but walk-ups are available so you can come a little earlier and stand in a queue to join one of the seven sessions happening throughout the week. Be prepared to test your models, the tracks will be available in the same ballroom as the workshop so it’s all in one place!
Organize a DeepRacer Event for fun and education
If you’re looking for a way to bring your colleagues together, to show them that machine learning doesn’t bite and to encourage them to learn a few new tricks while having great fun, these sessions are for you. AWS have the right solutions in place to cooperate with your organization and prepare a racing event. Whether you want a single virtual race or a multi-stage physical league across the continents, AWS has you covered.
DPR101 “Turbocharge your ML transformation with AWS DeepRacer events” – Francois van Rensburg will guide you through what possibilities AWS DeepRacer brings to companies and how you can use it as an opportunity to socialize and learn. If you want to hear some more hands-on experiences from organizations that tried it with great success, make sure to also go to the next one:
DPR102 “Drive collaboration and ML learning like JPMorgan Chase with AWS DeepRacer” – Eva Pagneux, the DeepRacer Product Manager, and Stephen Carrad, the DeepRacer Lead and a VP at JPMorgan Chase, will share how JPMorgan Chase embarked on a learning adventure back in 2019 which has grown to involve many racers around the globe and lead to two of them taking the top two places in the 2021 championships, making JPMC racers a great part of the racing landscape and the Community.
Try some advanced racing
This year there are two great opportunities for those who want to dig deeper.
In DPR301 “Living on the edge: Leverage Intel OpenVINO toolkit for AWS DeepRacer (sponsored by Intel)” Tim O’Brien, a DeepRacer veteran, will join Roger Chang and Alex White from Intel to talk about what possibilities OpenVINO brings when delivering inference to Intel-based hardware.
Here’s another interesting talk: in DPR401 “Look under the hood of AWS DeepRacer with Amazon SageMaker” Don Barber will guide you through setting up of DeepRacer using Amazon SageMaker. The DeepRacer console hides this whole complexity from you behind a managed service, in this workshop Don will show you how to set up everything: SageMaker, RoboMaker, S3, Kinesis Video Stream, how to customize them, and all this from the comfort of a notebook instance.
Networking
Races will be raced, workshops will be worked through, key notes will be noted and re:Play will be played. If you ask me what the most valuable aspect of AWS re:Invent is, I would say it’s the people.
AWS DeepRacer is fun not (just) because it’s a well-built product. It attracts great, curious people. I have been part of the AWS DeepRacer Community from the very beginning and I saw it grow. I’ve made great friends, we’ve done pretty impressive stuff together. The last years have robbed us of the opportunity to celebrate it together, that’s why I’m so happy that we’re back to racing in person in Vegas. This is also an opportunity for you to pick some pretty darn well-developed DeepRacer brains.
Meet the Community
Let’s meet, let’s have a chat around the track. If you’d like to try DeepRacer but need a helping hand, here’s your chance. Either simply show up by the track or join the Community Slack at http://join.deepracing.io and go to #aws-deepracer. I’m sure we’ll find a friendly Community person that will help you out.
See you at AWS re:Invent
I wish you a pleasant journey to Las Vegas and many learnings and ideas to bring back.
Update 10 Nov 2022 22:33 UTC
- Updated location as the MGM Grand tracks will be at the Conference Centre, not at the Arena.
- Fixed a typo in the Wildcard Race description: top 2 racers from the Wildcard leaderboard will join the top 30 racers from round one (was “top 3 racers from round one”)
- Finals are a preshow to Swami’s Keynote, so it’s 8:00 am PST, updated the details.
- Added information on the participation in the Wildcard Race
- Added more information on the availability of workshops and proximity to test tracks