With the 2022 season truly behind us, it’s time to look ahead at the start of the 2023 league (beginning start of March). Also bringing quite a few changes to what we’ve seen from 2021/2022.
The February Innovate Preseason race has finished and the winner is receiving the 4th ticket to Las Vegas for the re:Invent 2023 Championship! On that note, this isn’t the only specialty race in 2023, more mentioned below.
So let’s get to it and see what else this year has in store!
AWS DeepRacer
AWS DeepRacer is a service provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS) that allows users to train and deploy reinforcement learning (RL) models for autonomous driving in a simulated environment. The DeepRacer service includes a fully-managed simulation environment, a cloud-based machine learning platform for training models, and a physical car that can be programmed and trained to race on a track.
The 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.
2023 League Structure (Pro League)
There will be 3 ways of securing a 2023 Championship ticket:
- Virtual online monthly races (plus extras)
- Physical AWS summits that have DeepRacer tracks
- Wildcard physical race at re:invent 2023
The Virtual Circuit
A monthly online competition offered in AWS Console. All users must create an AWS account, which requires a credit card in order to compete – however all new users are given $30 in free tier usage for DeepRacer service and no purchase is necessary to participate. In addition, all users have the ability to upload models trained outside the AWS Console to the service, at no cost. There is no cost to submit to the competition, but there may be associated service usage costs for training models on service for those that exceed the free tier.
Virtual Circuit begins : March 1
Virtual Circuit ends : October 31
Open to : Anyone globally that meets the minimum age requirement (18+) and is in an eligible jurisdiction.
Competition format
Each month with have a single race that will have six indiviudal region winners, each racer will mark their belonging region at the start of the season.
Racers will submit their model to the single global virtual race. They are evaluated against other racers from their region every month, using a leaderboard filter and profile information users submit self defining their country of residence at sign up.
When you try to submit a model and get an error like this:
then simply go make sure that upon submission you select your country. Just be sure to select the right one. Corrections are not trivial and if you win something with an incorrect country selected, you will be disqualified when it comes out during prize claim verification.
If you don’t see the Country of residence, refresh the submission page.
Rewards
The top 10% of each region receive $50 amazon.com gift card (or cash equivalent if unavailable to purchase on amazon.com in their country), (limit to 10,000, limit 1 per year, if a participant qualifies more than once in a calendar year, that prize goes to the next eligible participant). Using a similar sort function, the same submissions are then evaluated at regional level, grouping regions as defined below to determine regional winners monthly.
The top 5 of each region receive $400 voucher to purchase a DeepRacer car from amazon.com (240), 1st place of each region earns a trip to re:Invent and a spot in the championship (48).
6 Total regions, each with Monthly prize winners (6 regions x 8 months = 48 prize winners).
- North America
- South America
- Europe and UK
- Asia Pacific, Australia, New Zealand, India, Japan
- Greater China Region (Taiwan, Hong Kong)
- Middle East and Africa
Additional Specialty marketing races and Prizing
Innovate Preseason was a specialty race where there was a prize to qualify into the championships and there will be more so be on the lookout for more exciting opportunities.
Cumulative Virtual Race
It can be hard to win the race so there’s a chance to get through based on consistency. Racers with the most points over the course of the Virtual Circuit (regional qualifier races only) will advance to re:Invent to compete in the Championship. There are seven cumulative results places: one global and one for each of the six regions!
If the winner has already qualified to re:Invent by other means the first eligible racer that has not yet won a trip will receive the trip
1st cumulative place winner will also receive trophy, jacket, and Winner Circle Driving Experience.
Here’s how points are distributed:
- 1st place +10
- 2nd place +9
- 3rd place +8
- 10 and below to receive 1 point
The Physical Summit Circuit
12 in person competitions taking place within AWS Global Summits and open only to attendees (attendance is free and open with registration).
Summit Experience (8 months of competition)
12 individual events on the dates and at the locations listed below
Open to: any attendee of an AWS Global Summit. AWS Global Summits require all attendees to be 18+, therefore Summit rules require all competitors to be 18+.
Free Competition: Attendance at any AWS Summit is free. At each event, competitors can use any of their own pretrained models on an AWS provided stock AWS DeepRacer physical device to compete on track, or a sample model provided by AWS. There is no cost to participate, however some participants that elect to train models on the console may experience some console service usage fees.
Competition format: #1 fastest participant of the day gets trip to re:Invent ($4,500 MSRP) and championship entry (12 total), positions 1-3 get DeepRacer cars ($400 USD MSRP, must be retrieved day of or prize is forfeited).
Summit locations will be Paris, Sydney, Tokyo, Berlin, Mumbai, Hong Kong, London, Washington DC, Madrid, Shanghai, New York City, Taipei.
You can signup to receive all the latest news and events dates here https://aws.amazon.com/events/summits/?awsf.events-location=all&awsf.events-series=all
AWS DeepRacer Wildcard race
Those who participate in the AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas in person will be able to enter an AWS DeepRacer Wildcard race the winner of which will join other racers in the championships. Details on the wildcard race are usually released with the championship details before re:Invent.
2023 League Structure (Student League)
AWS DeepRacer Student League
The DeepRacer Student league is a global, virtual only competition that runs monthly, and mirrors the Virtual league in format, awarding regional prize winners culminating in an end of year championship competition.
NOTE the student league is separate from the pro league as the they don’t come with a spot in the 2023 championship but participation in the wildcard race is welcome.
Free Competition: The Student League runs on a separate service (AWS DeepRacer Student) outside the AWS Console (AWS Player), providing its own enrollment and free monthly service quotas which cannot be exceeded by users. Users are limited to 10 hours of training time each month, and cannot upload models to the service. All participants therefore have the same access to training time and resources at no cost.
Open to: Those that self identify as students currently enrolled in high school or higher education. In 2022, we set a minimum age of 16+ globally, we are still confirming if there are any changes to age of participation.
Student League begins: March 1st
Student League End: Sep 30th
Each month, the top 10% of each region receive $50 amazon.com gift card (or cash equivalent if unavailable to purchase on amazon.com in their country)(limit to 10,000, limit 1 per year, if a participant qualifies more than once in a calendar year, that prize goes to the next eligible participant), top 1-2-3-4-5 of each region receive $400 voucher (210), #1 of each region earns a spot in the DeepRacer Student world championship (42).
6 regions that will take part in 7 months of competition are:
- North America
- South America
- Europe and UK
- Asia Pacific, Australia, New Zealand, India, Japan
- Greater China Region (Taiwan, Hong Kong)
- Middle East and Africa
Student Championship
Student world championship run as 3 groups of 14 virtually.
The top 6 in each group advance to a top 18 virtual finale.
Top 1-3 earn a trip to re:Invent with their guardian (a Prize MSRP of $12k for each trip for 2, $36,000 total).
Additional Swag/ Recognition Prizing
This is just an extract and the source of it is the T&Cs/Rules document which can be found here: https://aws.amazon.com/deepracer/league/. You will find them under “Virtual Circuit Rules”.
Virtual Circuit Prizing
Monthly Qualifier : 1/ A badge recognizing your accomplishment at a country level – 1st, 2nd, 3rd of each country gets a badge (no monetary value). 2/
Summit Prizing
1. Trophies, jackets distributed on site to the top 3 (No cash value – SWAG)
2. Advance to the regional main event.
3. AWS DeepRacer cars distributed to top 5. Must be present to receive car on site, no shipping. MSRP $400.
The virtual races initially will be held in time trial format and you will be able to submit your models multiple times. The tracks will change each month. So be sure to go into the AWS DeepRacer Console in your AWS Account, check out the rules and join the fun!