AWS DeepRacer League 2021 Update #5 End of Month Special

It’s all done! No more submissions for the March race and after some final pushes I can share who we will follow in the Pro Division in April and who will fight for the finals in March.

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 News

AWS DeepRacer Women’s League India 2021

If you haven’t done so yet, there’s still time to register for the AWS DeepRacer Women’s League India 2021 which invites students in India to join the race for the ML knowledge, bragging rights and some pretty sweet prizes. More info on our blog.

AWS DeepRacer League March Finale

The final race will take place on the 8th of April at 5:30 pm PST (9th of April 1:30 am BST, 9th of April 10:30 pm AEDT). It will be presented live on the main AWS Twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/aws.

April races

Both Open and Pro Divisions have started their races. This month we’re facing the Lars Loop and Lars Circuit, inspired by the Thunderhill Raceway Park in California. Lars is racing as Duckworth in the league and is a very active community member, maintaining the local training stack and contributing to many other community projects.

Head over to the AWS DeepRacer Console to start your autonomous racing adventure.

Pro Division

Race info:

• Track named after the winner of 2020 AWS DeepRacer League
• 89.24 meters long
• 107 centimetres wide
• Multiple difficult turns with the most tricky one exiting a chicane past the hairpin in the upper-right corner, branded Yellow Brick Road since it looks like the beginning of Yellow Brick Read from The Wizard of Oz
• Head-to-bot format with four bot cars cruising at 2 m/s without lane changes
• Racers are trying to complete three laps
• Each collision and each driving off the track results in a five seconds penalty
• Top 16 go on into a live race which will be streamed on Twitch on the 8th of April to fight for places in the League Finals and AWS DeepRacer EVOs

Let’s see the stats for the whole group:

All submissions
Update time: 2021-04-01 07:08:37.188048 UTC
Comparing to 2021-03-28 18:00:00 UTC

Racers: 70 (+8)
Total submission attempts: 71505 (+10446)
Best total time: 01:26.927 by JJ
Mean total time: 03:32.915828571 (+00:03.833360829)
Best lap: 00:28.676 by JJ
Mean best lap: 01:06.455142857 (+00:01.180062212)
Mean average lap: 01:10.971614286 (+00:01.277807834)

Eight racers joined in a last minute attempt which brings the total of participants to 70, none of them however managed to jump into top 20.

Top 20 submissions
Update time: 2021-04-01 07:08:37.188048 UTC
Comparing to 2021-03-28 18:00:00 UTC

Racers: 20
Total submission attempts: 46315 (+7210)
Best total time: 01:26.927 by JJ
Mean total time: 01:37.866450 (-00:01.377750)
Best lap: 00:28.676 by JJ
Mean best lap: 00:31.838500 (-00:00.373500)
Mean average lap: 00:32.621850 (-00:00.459150)

We’ve had some active submission attempts in the top twenty, most racers however haven’t improved their times. Let’s see what this means in terms of final standings:

No changes in top five and there are some shifts just below. PolishThunder has made some significant improvements that have moved him from 14th to 6th – those lower places are not very comfortable. Another significant jump cane from GT-DevelopersIO. Impressing nine-second speed-up puts the racer in 10th and marks the last successful dash into the top16. Unfortunately this means that we will not see AJM-Model-1 who tried really hard and shared a lot of his effort in the AWS DeepRacer Community. It’s good that there will be more races to fight in.

Let’s end with the time improvements graph:

Open Division

Open races will always be slightly easier than the Pro ones. Let’s see what’s on in March:

Race info:

• Po-Chun Speedway is a simplified version of the Pro track
• 68.68 meters long
• 107 centimetres wide
• Simpler and shorter than the pro track but still pretty challenging with a variety of straights and turns, some of them pretty tight
• Time Trial format
• Competitors need to complete three laps and total time counts for their classification
• Each off-track results in five seconds penalty.
• Racers fight for qualification to the Pro group which is won by the top 10%
• They will also receive a Pro Welcoming Kit which is a bit of a mystery

Let’s take a look at the overall stats:

All submissions
Update time: 2021-04-01 07:08:43.022931 UTC
Comparing to 2021-03-28 18:00:00 UTC

Racers: 972 (+57)
Total submission attempts: 10473 (+814)
Best total time: 01:10.649 (-00:03.378) by ZhengYi-NYCU-CGI
Mean total time: 05:33.590667695 (-00:02.029640501)
Best lap: 00:22.356 by Yoway-NYCU-CGI
Mean best lap: 01:45.122076132 (-00:00.587923868)
Mean average lap: 01:51.196564815 (-00:00.676547753)

57 new racers in the last three days and a total of 97 racers (most likely) qualifying into the Pro Division. We’ve got a significant time improvement in the top 20:

Top 20 submissions
Update time: 2021-04-01 07:08:43.022931 UTC
Comparing to 2021-03-28 18:00:00 UTC

Racers: 20
Total submission attempts: 1770 (+56)
Best total time: 01:10.649 (-00:03.378) by ZhengYi-NYCU-CGI
Mean total time: 01:29.140100 (-00:04.354200)
Best lap: 00:22.356 by Yoway-NYCU-CGI
Mean best lap: 00:28.615250 (-00:01.275500)
Mean average lap: 00:29.713100 (-00:01.451400)

A 4 seconds reduction in mean total time when only four racers had better times than on Sunday – pretty impressive. Overall top 20 racers were pretty inactive towards the end – not much incentive in racing when qualification is already secured.

Now have a look who joined the top of the table at the very last moment:

Two more NYCU students jumped straight to the top at the very last moment. Pretty impressive. I’m wondering if it’s three students racing this year and that’s it or if we’ll see more join. I’m pretty sure we will be dedicating some time to their results in the months to come. Have a look at the top 20 racers open division times throughout the month:

Every leader we’ve had since the second day of March has qualified from the looks of it. We could also see some impressive improvements along the way.

And something more interesting: top 97 racers’ times:

Let’s end this post with the list of top 97 racers. We’ll be observing them in the Pro Division starting April:

If you’d like to learn some Machine Learning skills while racing for glory, be sure to check out the AWS DeepRacer Page for hints on how to get started. Be sure to join the AWS Machine Learning Community on Discord for more tips and tricks on how to improve your model.