Any team which meets the following conditions is eligible to participate in the 3rd Racecar Challenge competition:

• All its members have met the 3^rd Racecar Challenge’s eligibility criteria and have been duly registered for the 3^rd  Racecar Challenge program,
• All the team members have completed at least the first 3 Labs of the Beaver Works Summer Institute’s miniRacecar course with a minimum grade of .5 for each 3 labs by April 8, 2024 at the latest,
• The team has submitted to Pierce its codes by April 8, 2024 at 18:00.

Note:

• A school can participate with more than one team in the competition. Each student can participate in only one group. Teams can be composed of students from different schools.

Registration requires 2 steps: a first step, to be undertaken by the teachers or educators which will guide the team(s) throughout the course and the competition (individual students cannot register on their own), and a second step, for all students and educators to register on BWSI’s portal for miniRacecar and/or Python Core as per the information which will be provided by the organizers to each registrant once the first step is completed.

Please note that the process can take up to a week to complete.

Participation in the competition is free of charge.

A team wishing to cancel their participation can do so by sending a cancellation message at [email protected].

First Winner

The 3rd Racecar Challenge winning team and its accompanying teacher will have the opportunity to represent Greece at the Beaver Works Summer Institute’s final racecar competition in August 2024 held on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the USA . They will also qualify to attend the last week of BWSI’s summer program immediately preceding the final challenge, also on the MIT campus.

The winning team must be accompanied by one and one only teacher. Boarding and traveling expenses of the winning team and its accompanying teacher are not covered by the organizers or BWSI. If the winning team cannot travel to MIT’s campus the first week of August, it will receive support from BWSI during the last week of BWSI’s camp to prepare for BWSI’s final challenge and to participate in BWSI’s final challenge virtually.

It is important that the winning team uses the time between the Greek competition and its attendance to the last week of BWSI’s camp to prepare itself. By then, it must have completed miniRacecar’s all 5 labs and be comfortable with its material. In BWSI’s final competition on August 4, 2024, the winning team will be facing a challenge which will be different from the one they faced in the Greek competition. That challenge will be given to them on July 29, 2024 and the winning team will have that week to prepare their code for BWSI’s final competition.

Second & Third Winners

The teams that will be distinguished in the second and third place will receive a certificate stating their ranking.

The other teams will receive a certificate of participation.

The 3rd Racecar Challenge will take place at Pierce’s on Saturday April 13, 2024, and will be transmitted online. The competition will be based on the codes the teams will have written as per the specifications of the miniRacecar course. On the day of the competition, participating teams may also be asked to write codes for an additional time trial (further information will be provided in December 2023). The competition will not require a physical car.

On April 8, 2024, educators will declare the team(s) wishing to participate in the 3rd Racecar Challenge. All members of the teams who wish to participate in the 3rd Racecar Challenge must have completed at least the first 3 Labs of Racecar Challenge by April 8, 2024, with a grade of at least .5 in each first 3 Labs, as confirmed by BWSI.

By April 8, 2024, all participating teams must have submitted their codes to Pierce for 4 time- trials and a final Mini Grand Prix track, which they will develop as an extension of the codes they have already developed through miniRacecar in the course’s Final Challenge session (time trials and Grand Prix) (additional information will be provided in March/April 2024)

All the participants’ codes will be run on one same computer by the organizers.

On April 13, 2024, the day of the competition, the participating teams will compete first in 4 time-trials and the fifth possible one they will code on site. Teams will be ranked in function of their time at the 4 or possibly 5 time-trials. The first 8 teams will then proceed to the final Mini Grand Prix.

In the Mini Grand Prix, the 8 teams will compete in pairs based on the codes they will have submitted. The winning team for each pair will be the team which will be the first to win 2 rounds. The winning 4 teams will compete again in pairs in the same manner (first 2 wins). The winning 2 teams will then compete in the final round, and the first to win 2 rounds will be the final winner which will represent Greece at BWSI’s final competition.

Stage 1 Time Trials

Each participating team, as per the codes it submitted, will be called to run on four tracks where they will be timed. The four tracks are:

1. Line Following: Cars must follow a line of a specific color from start to finish keeping constantly the line between the car wheels.
2. Lane Following: Cars must remain between two lines of a specific color from start to finish.
3. Wall Following: Cars must remain between two walls from start to finish.
4. Cone Slaloming: Cars must slalom between colored cones, blue and red, passing each color in a specific direction.

As mentioned above, participants may be given an on-site coding exercise for a 5^th time trial designed by the organizers.

In each of the 4 or 5 trials, the teams will receive points based on their ranking. The sum of the points collected by each team in the four or five categories will determine their overall ranking, from which the first eight teams will qualify to move on to the next phase.

The scoring will be as follows:

In the event that in any of the time trials a car stops or leaves the track,  its team is first ranked based on the time it achieved in the preceding trials, and for that time trial and the following ones, if any, it will be given the time of the slowest team among the teams which completed that time trial plus 20 seconds. For instance, if the worst time achieved by all teams for the Wall Following time trial is 70 seconds, then each team which will not finish that time trial will be assigned a 90 second time. In the event of a tie, the teams which do not complete a trial will be ranked in function of the fastest total time they have achieved until then.

Stage 2 Mini Grand Prix – Elimination Games

Once the four or five  time-trials are completed, the eight teams with the most points will advance to the 2nd and final stage of the challenge. At this stage the teams will compete in elimination matches with one another, the winning team being the first one to win 2 rounds. The  winners of the four pairs will form two new pairs. The winners of these pairs will compete in the grand final where the grand winner of the competition will emerge. The losers will compete in the small final to advance to the third and fourth rank.

In all stages of the elimination races the winner will be the team that finishes or, in the event that both vehicles stop or go off the track, the one that has gone the furthest down the track. If in the first attempt both vehicles stop or go off the track, the attempt starts from the beginning with the vehicles changing positions at the starting point.

These rules may be completed with more detailed information at a later stage.

By registering for miniRacecar and for participating in the Racecar Challenge, each team member and their educator agree that they will adhere to the honor code of the Beaver Works Summer Institute and of the Racecar Challenge organizers. In particular, in registering for the Racecar Challenge,  students signify that they agree that they will:

• Complete all tests and assignments on their own, unless collaboration on an assignment is explicitly permitted.
• Maintain only one user account and not let anyone else use their username and/or password.
• Not engage in any activity that would dishonestly improve their results, or improve or hurt the results of others.
• Not post answers to problems that are being used to assess student performance.

VIOLATIONS

Σε περίπτωση κάποιας παραβίασης των ανωτέρω, βάσει της απόλυτης κρίσης του BWSI ή των διοργανωτών, οι μαθητές υπόκεινται σε μία ή περισσότερες από τις παρακάτω κυρώσεις:

• Μηδενισμός ή μη βαθμολόγηση μιας εργασίας ή ενός ολόκληρου μαθήματος
• Δέσμευση ή ακύρωση κάθε πιστοποιητικού του μαθήματος
• Διαγραφή από το μάθημα
• Μη δυνατότητα χρήσης της Ιστοσελίδας
• Μη δυνατότητα συμμετοχής στο Racecar Challenge ή αναίρεση του αποτελέσματος της ομάδας τους στο Racecar Challenge.

Additional actions may be taken at the sole discretion of BWSI and the Organizers.

In the event that unforeseen events or questions arise during the competition, they will be addressed by Racecar Challenge’s independent Scientific Committee. The decision reached by the Scientific Committee is final, and by participating in Racecar Challenge, a participant signifies that he/she agrees to abide by such decision.

September 18, 2023

Opening of registration for students and accompanying teacher or educators for BWSI’s miniRacecar and/or Python Core, and the 3rd Racecar Challenge.

October 12, 2023, 18:00

Registrations close.

March 27, 2024

Indicative declaration of participating teams to the organizers.

April 8, 2024, 18:00

Deadline for the completion of at least the 1^st 3 labs of the BWSI MiniRacecar course to qualify to participate in 3^rd Racecar Challenge and for the submission of teams’ codes (with the possibility that this date be moved a few days earlier to allow the organizers to prepare for the competition, depending on the number of participating teams).

April 13, 2024

3^rd  Racecar Challenge, at Pierce – The American College of Greece in Athens, Greece

July 28, 2024

Completion of at least the first 3 miniRacecar Labs for students who could not complete them sooner but chose to continue the course in order to receive a certificate of completion from BWSI.

July 29, 2024

Beginning of the attendance by the 3^rd Racecar Challenge’s winning team of the last week of BWSI summer camp and final competition pre-trials.

August 4, 2024

Final BWSI Racecar Challenge 2024.