re:Invent 2024 is around the corner and as recently announced by AWS, the finals in Las Vegas will be the last chance to participate in an AWS organised competition. AWS DeepRacer will live on in the console during 2025 and then transition to an open source AWS Solution that you will be able to deploy into your own AWS account. This will operate in a similar way to DeepRacer Event Manager, which was open sourced to allow people to manage physical events. This will allow DeepRacer to live on in communities and companies that want to continue to use it to introduce people to AI/ML and have some fun along the way. I’m sure there will be lots more news on this as it evolves.
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 organisations begin their educational journey into machine learning through fun and rivalry. Racers can learn a range of transferable skills including Python, and by completing additional workshops and analysis to improve their models additional skills such as Generative AI using Amazon Bedrock, Sagemaker and Jupyter Notebooks. Through a range of community projects additional skills can be learned including using AWS Spot Instances, S3 buckets, Docker containers and many more.
Visit the AWS DeepRacer page to learn more about how it can help you and your organisation 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 and check out all our community projects on GitHub.
The 2024 Finals
The finals will consist of up to 32 people: –
- 24 winners from the virtual circuit monthly region races (top finishes in the 6 regions in each of the 4 heats that took place throughout the year)
- 1 returning 2023 AWS DeepRacer League Championship Champion, Fiatlux
- 1 AWS DeepRacer League 2024 re:Invent open top finisher, Polish Thunder
- 6 2024 wildcard winners from the Wildcard Last Chance race at re:Invent 2024 (read more on how you can take part below)
All racing will take place at the AWS DeepRacer Championship Stadium at the Sands Expo, which is accessed via the Venetian Hotel or Caesars Forum. It is close to the hall where the keynote speeches take place.
Although not officially announced, my suspicion is the box I’ve highlighted in red will be the DeepRacer track. This is based on it’s location next to the data and AI/ML pavilion, the dimensions of the box (it’s a large rectangle!) and the ‘BOH’ box (presumably ‘back of house’) running adjacent to the Data and AI-ML Pavilion, which I suspect is for the pit crew. We’ll have to wait and see if my suspicions are proved correct, but if it’s not the right place I’m sure a walk around the expo hall will help you locate it. It’s a great spectacle and should be hard to miss!
There’s a ‘new’ track for the finals this year, aptly named ‘Forever Raceway’, sure to bring a tear to the eye of any seasoned racer: –
I say ‘new’ because some seasoned racers may notice a familiarity with the ‘RL Speedway’, used during the AWS Summits in 2022. The tracks are indeed very similar, with the tale of the tape showing the main difference is a narrowing of the track, likely to make cornering harder and therefore lap times a little slower than those achieved at the 2022 summits: –
| Track Name | Length | Width |
| RL Speedway | 25.23m | 1.07m |
| Forever Raceway | 25.10m | 0.76m |
The format for this year’s finals has been shaken up, which in my opinion is a welcome change, including switching up track direction and format through the rounds.
Wildcard Last Chance Race – 16:00-19:00 2nd December
As in previous competitions if you’ve yet to qualify for the finals and are attending re:Invent you have one last chance to qualify for the finals. Simply train your model (or use an AWS provided one) and turn up to the track 16:00-19:00 on Monday 2nd December in the Expo hall in the Sands Expo and queue to take part. Note that the race is only open for 3 hours and walk-ups are not guaranteed an attempt, so I advise to get their early to not be disappointed.
The format for the wildcard race is single fastest lap in a clockwise direction, and each racer will have 2 minutes to set their fastest time. The 6 top finishers will qualify for the finals, which is an excellent increase on the 2 spots provided in recent years.
Round 1: Field of 32 Race – 12:00-15:00 3rd December & 4th December
Those making the finals round 1 will be split into 2 groups for efficient use of time. However, all racers will be ranked together at the end of the two days so all 32 racers are racing each other.
The format for round 1 will be best average of 3 consecutive laps in a clockwise direction. Each racer will get 2 attempts, each 2 minutes in length. The top 8 finishers will progress to round 2. This means clean laps are really important as it’s likely to take more that 30 seconds to put together 3 laps, so one offtrack will mean another 30 seconds before competitive average laps are being recorded again. The average lap timing will be rolling, so it could be laps 1, 2, 3 but then if lap 4 is faster it could move to 2, 3, 4 and so on.
Asia Pacific, Greater China Region and Middle East & Africa will be joined by the odd numbered wildcard winners (#1, #3, #5) for their race on the 3rd December.
North America, South America and Europe will be joined by the even numbered wildcard winners (#2, #4, #6) for their race on the 4th December.
Anyone qualifying for round 1 will be able to join the practice session 10:00-12:00 on the morning of their race only, where each person will get at least one practice run.
Round 2: Time Trial Bracket of 8 Race – 10:00-13:00 5th December
The 8 racers who made it through round 1 will regroup on Thursday morning for round 2. The format for round 2 is a little more complicated, and reminds me of the movie BASEketball and their playoff tiebreak, although no-one’s expecting to crown the winner with a two person sack race on consecutive Sundays. Put as simply as possible it’s a ‘cup’, or ‘playoff’ competition where instead of having a league table of fastest times individuals will race against each other, with the first people to win 2 of their matches progressing to round 3, with each loser getting another chance, but two losses results in elimination: –
The format for round 2 will be best average of 3 consecutive laps in a counterclockwise direction, yes that’s right, racers will go in the opposite direction to the wildcard and round 1! Each racer will get 2 attempts, each 2 minutes in length per match. The top 3 finishers will progress to round 3.
Round 3: Championship Grand Finale – 15:00-16:00 5th December
With only 2 hours respite the final 3 will get back together for the final race in DeepRacer Championship history!
The format for round 3 will be best average of 3 consecutive laps, but the direction of racing will only be decided prior to the start of round 3 with a coin flip! Each racer will get 1 attempt of 2 minutes to put their best time on the board, which is a welcome improvement on the single lap format used in 2022 and 2023. It may have looked exciting to the spectators but didn’t give racers time to dial in their models on the car(s) chosen.
The 2024 Prizes
As well as competing for pride and the chance to be etched into DeepRacer folklore as the last AWS competition winner there are prizes available to those doing well, certainly an incentive to try your luck at the wildcard event if you are attending re:Invent. Prizes for 2024 will cover the top 6 finishers: –
| Place | Prize |
| 1st | $25,000 and the Championship Cup trophy |
| 2nd | $11,000 and the second place Championship Cup trophy |
| 3rd | $6,000 and third place Championship Cup trophy |
| 4th | $4,000 |
| 5th | $2,500 |
| 6th | $1,500 |
Summary
The final competitive race should really separate the field with a need to have fast stable models capable of doing at least 3 clean laps in a row in either direction. Whoever takes the top prizes will have really earned it!
Whilst many racers may be sad that the AWS provided competitive racing draws to a close this season let’s be grateful for the the competitions we had, the friends we’ve made and the community that’s built up around it, hopefully they’ll continue in the years to come in the open source format.
If you are coming to Las Vegas for re:Invent, why not stop by the track and have a chat with your friendly AWS DeepRacer Community member. Ideally turn up with a model and try your luck in the wildcard race, you never know what might happen! Remember to join the community at http://join.deepracing.io to connect with us before the conference.
Follow https://blog.deepracing.io to learn more about the world of AWS DeepRacer.