Announcing AWS DeepRacer League 2024. New year, new rules

Starting 1st of March, new and seasoned racers are beginning their quest for the title of the AWS DeepRacer Champion. Will it be a completely new racer again like in 2023? Or will one of the racing legends claim their bragging rights?

Read on to learn about the format and the rules

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.

New season

Starting on the 1st March AWS will launch monthly virtual races. Over eight months until October racers will compete for tickets into the AWS DeepRacer Championships taking place during the AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas.

Participants will be allocated to regions based on their country of residence:

Asia & Pacific
Europe
Greater China Region
Middle East & Asia
North America
South America

Make sure you provide the correct country or you may lose your qualification after verification.

What also remains unchanged this year is that each racer has a limit of 50 submissions in a month.

This year qualifications run in two months long heats: in each month racers receive points for their results and at the end of each heat their cumulative score is compared against others in the region.

The points granted have been improved compared to last year. This time if I understand correctly, points are only calculated globally. Each month the winner gets 100 points, second racer gets 97 points. Each next racer up to 20st gets 3 points less than the one above. The 20st racer gets 43 points and then the points reduce by 2 – 21st gets 41, 22nd 39 and so on down to 40th who receives 3 points. Racers from places 41 onwards receive 1 point each.

Another useful addition is a tie breaker on the race, heat and global points level which should greatly improve clarity. Within a race if multiple racers clock the same time, they will be compared based on off tracks count and then fastest lap comparison. For a heat first users are compared based on their aggregated times within the heat, then based on their resets. For the global points tie users are compared based on their aggregated times.

The best racers of the heat in each region qualify into the AWS DeepRacer championships. This includes a flight to Las Vegas, a 5 night stay at a hotel, the entry into the AWS re:Invent 2024 conference and a $500 pocket money to cover your food and travel costs while there.

On top of that, top 3 racers in each region in each race (so every month) receive an Amazon.com voucher worth $250.

And on top of that, top 50 racers in each region in each race (so also every month) receive an Amazon.com voucher worth $99.

If that isn’t enough, each month first 2000 submitters receive $30 AWS credits.

Finally, after the four heats, top ten racers globally (including those who already qualified) will receive $2000 cash prize each.

Remember you can only win one of each type of prize.

This year there will be no physical summit races.

As always, check T&Cs on AWS League page as they can change when improvements are needed.

AWS Deepracer Championships

The 24 finalists from the regional races will be joined by 6 last minute qualifier from the wildcard race at re:Invent and the 2023 champion FiatLux and the 2023 Open Race winner PolishThunder to complete the group of 32 racers to fight for the fame and glory and prizes:

1st place winner: $25,000
2nd place winner: $11,000
3rd place winner: $6,000
4th place winner: $4,000
5th place winner: $2,500
6th place winner: $1,500

Student league

The student league has also begun: you can join it at https://student.deepracer.com/

The rules for the student league have not changed much (if at all) from last year. Racers participate in monthly races and fight for a qualifications into championships in their regions.

There are prizes of scholarship grants, provided to the winner’s School/College for the winner’s benefit, of value between $750 and $11,000.

There are also vouchers for amazon.com of value $50 top 100 global finishers in each region in each race, and $99 for top 10 regional top finishers in each race.

As always, check T&Cs on AWS Student League page as they can change when improvements are needed.

Summary

Be sure to join us in the league and the community so that we can all share the learning and excitement of the season. The first race has already started on the 1st of March, you can track progress on the new official leaderboard at https://awsdeepracerleagueleaderboard.com/

Also while you’re here, be sure to visit https://join.deepracing.io to join the new and shiny community Discord!