2022 Call For Participation

Self Racing Cars is scheduled for October 12-13 2022 at Weathertech Laguna Seca! We will also try to do one or more sensor days in to collect data ahead of the event.

Call For Participation

Please sign up to participate or drop us a line at contact@selfracingcars.com if you have any of the following things to test or demo:

  • Autonomous vehicles

  • Drivetrain innovation (electric or otherwise)

  • Simulation

  • Sensors & Cameras

  • Software and Algorithms

  • Teleoperation

  • Connected Cars (v2v or v2i)

  • Anything else - probably! Drop us a line.

  • Independent and hobbyist teams are especially welcome.

We can help match you with a driver and vehicle if you are testing systems, especially sensors. 

Confirmed Attendees

Competition

We will be running timing and scoring for best autonomous laps the full-sized 2.1 mile track. Any vehicle that can make the two mile lap is welcome to attempt.  Awards will be given for top performers in each class, with competition classes (e.g. "full-sized vehicle", "gas-powered go-kart", "teleoperated", etc.) to be determined as the event unfolds. 

If you are interested in sponsoring a challenge, please contact us at contact@selfracingcars.com.

Data

As with our last events, we will be sharing data collected with various sensors and systems. Developers building on your systems will be able to see what the output looks like in a real-world yet controlled situation.

Sign Up

Participants, please sign up to participate here, or send us an email at contact@selfracingcars.com.

Spectators (including press, investors, students, engineers), please sign up here.

Sponsors should drop us an email at contact@selfracingcars.com.

2021 Call For Participation

Self Racing Cars is scheduled for October 16-17 2021 at Thunderhill Raceway. We will also try to do one or more sensor days in to collect data ahead of the event. We will probably do some test days beforehand as well.

Call For Participation

Please sign up to participate or drop us a line at contact@selfracingcars.com if you have any of the following things to test or demo:

  • Autonomous vehicles

  • Drivetrain innovation (electric or otherwise)

  • Simulation

  • Sensors & Cameras

  • Software and Algorithms

  • Teleoperation

  • Connected Cars (v2v or v2i)

  • Anything else - ask!

  • Independent and hobbyist teams are especially welcome.

We can help match you with a driver and vehicle if you are testing systems, especially sensors. 

Confirmed Attendees

Competition

We will be running timing and scoring for best autonomous laps the full-sized 2.1 mile track. Any vehicle that can make the two mile lap is welcome to attempt.  Awards will be given for top performers in each class, with competition classes (e.g. "full-sized vehicle", "gas-powered go-kart", "teleoperated", etc.) to be determined as the event unfolds. 

If you are interested in sponsoring a challenge, please contact us at contact@selfracingcars.com.

Data

As with our last events, we will be sharing data collected with various sensors and systems. Developers building on your systems will be able to see what the output looks like in a real-world yet controlled situation.

Sign Up

Participants, please sign up to participate here, or send us an email at contact@selfracingcars.com.

Spectators (including press, investors, students, engineers), please sign up here.

Sponsors should drop us an email at contact@selfracingcars.com.

Rescheduling Self Racing Cars in 2020

In light of recent events, I've decided to reschedule Self Racing Cars to later in 2020. I realize that this is more than is currently called by the experts but I feel that in this case it is better safe than sorry, especially with a rapidly changing situation.

Please make sure you are subscribed to our announcement list so that you can be updated when we have found a new time to run our event.

Thank you for your continued support.

Results from our recent Test Day

On Monday, February 24th, we did an early test day at Thunderhill West to provide practice runs for interested groups.

Point One Navigation once again managed to transit the track at speed. We'll find out soon if they manage to improve on their last laptime.

Andy Sloane managed to get a 1/5th scale RC car around the track autonomously. The little thing wasn't always in the right place, but it did manage to do a full transit at roughly 20 mph. Here's a video that starts roughly when the car actually begins moving. Here's a build thread about the vehicle setup itself, and a analysis of it's performance.

And finally, congratulations to Qibus, who managed to do a teleoperated lap with a driver located in Belarus! Here's a slightly sped up video - laptime was roughly five minutes. Does anyone know if this is a first?

How big is a 1/5th scale RC car?

How big is a 1/5th scale RC car?

Our next event is in three weeks!

We're looking forward to seeing you March 21-22 at Thunderhill Raceway in Willows, CA! If you have been thinking of testing on track, presenting, or demoing, please let us know as soon as possible! You can also contact us at contact@selfracingcars.com.

And if you are planning on attending as a spectator, here's the signup!

2020 Call For Participation

NOTE: This event is cancelled and will be rescheduled.

Self Racing Cars returns to Thunderhill Raceway on March 21-22 2020. We will also try to do one or more sensor days in January to collect data ahead of the event.

Call For Participation

Please sign up to participate or drop us a line at contact@selfracingcars.com if you have any of the following things to test or demo:

  • Autonomous vehicles

  • Drivetrain innovation (electric or otherwise)

  • Simulation

  • Sensors & Cameras

  • Software and Algorithms

  • Teleoperation

  • Connected Cars (v2v or v2i)

  • Anything else - ask!

  • Independent and hobbyist teams are especially welcome.

We can help match you with a driver and vehicle if you are testing systems, especially sensors. 

Confirmed Attendees

Competition

We will be running timing and scoring for best autonomous laps the full-sized 2.1 mile track. Any vehicle that can make the two mile lap is welcome to attempt.  Awards will be given for top performers in each class, with competition classes (e.g. "full-sized vehicle", "gas-powered go-kart", "teleoperated", etc.) to be determined as the event unfolds. 

If you are interested in sponsoring a challenge, please contact us at contact@selfracingcars.com.

Data

As with our last events, we will be sharing data collected with various sensors and systems. Developers building on your systems will be able to see what the output looks like in a real-world yet controlled situation.

Sign Up

Participants, please sign up to participate here, or send us an email at contact@selfracingcars.com.

Spectators (including press, investors, students, engineers), please sign up here.

Sponsors should drop us an email at contact@selfracingcars.com.


Videos from March 2019 event

This year's fastest lap:

Point One Navigation managed to get around the track in 2:06 in a Lexus CT200h - versus a 1:48 with a a human driving. The human vs machine gap is closing rapidly.

We got some great mentions:

Self Racing Cars was featured in both The New York Times and WIRED!

Event videos are done! Check them out:

2019 Event Recap

Velodyne was back to strut their latest and greatest

Point One Navigation (this year's winners) tell us about their localization platform.

A quick demo of Point One's custom platform for monitoring their autonomous car

Polysync and Udacity students try to get around the track

Embark shows off their autonomous truck


2019 Call For Participation - March 23 & 24

Self Racing Cars returns to Thunderhill Raceway on March 23-24 2019. 

Call for Participation

Please sign up to participate or drop us a line at contact@selfracingcars.com if you have any of the following things to test or demo:

  • Autonomous vehicles

  • Drivetrain innovation (electric or otherwise)

  • Simulation

  • Sensors & Cameras

  • Software and Algorithms

  • Teleoperation

  • Connected Cars (v2v or v2i)

  • Anything else - ask!

  • Independent and hobbyist teams are especially welcome.

We can help match you with a driver and vehicle if you are testing systems, especially sensors. 

Confirmed Attendees

Competition

We will be running timing and scoring for best autonomous laps the full-sized 2.1 mile track. Any vehicle that can make the two mile lap is welcome to attempt.  Awards will be given for top performers in each class, with competition classes (e.g. "full-sized vehicle", "gas-powered go-kart", "teleoperated", etc.) to be determined as the event unfolds. 

If you are interested in sponsoring a challenge, please contact us at contact@selfracingcars.com.

Data

As with our last events, we will be sharing data collected with various sensors and systems. Developers building on your systems will be able to see what the output looks like in a real-world yet controlled situation.

Sign Up

Participants, please sign up to participate here, or send us an email at contact@selfracingcars.com.

Spectators (including press, investors, students, engineers), please sign up here.

Sponsors should drop us an email at contact@selfracingcars.com.

Videos from March 2018 event

As always, we've filmed a recap of the event and short summaries about some of our participants.

Aside from our main event summary and recap, here is a quick list of videos:

Velodyne shows off the VLP-128.

Swerve.ai explains the future beyond traction control with an on-track demo of a 2:05 lap!

Renesas explains the community behind Self Racing Cars.

Comma.ai dramatically improved their laptime by more than a minute to a 2:06.

AutonomouStuff gives a great demo.

PointOne (previous year's winners) explains how they do localization.

Fastest autonomous laptimes!

At our recent event at Thunderhill, a number of teams made valiant attempts to get around the track. This time, three teams succeeded - and were much faster than last year's times!

First up is swerve.ai's 2:06 lap. We knew they would be quick, with team heritage from both Audi's autonomous racecar technology as well as RoboRace. Their technology is more about the future of traction control and ride safety at high performance.

Just behind is comma.ai's lap at 2:07. Their platform is more computer vision-centric and also turns in a great lap. Also of interest is how their platform's data visualization is integrated into the viewer. You can view the lap here.

Finally, AutonomouStuff also turned in a 3:41. AutonomouStuff focuses on the hardware side of things so that the software folks can quickly get going, so this is a very impressive result!

Our Next Event is March 24-25 2018 at Thunderhill Raceway

Self Racing Cars returns to Thunderhill Raceway on March 24-25 2018. This year will be bigger, better, and hopefully faster!

Testing and Demoing

Please sign up to participate if you have any of the following things to test or demo:

  • Autonomous vehicles
  • Drivetrain innovation (electric or otherwise)
  • Simulation
  • Sensors
  • Cameras
  • Software and Algorithms
  • Teleoperation
  • Connected Cars (v2v or v2i)
  • Anything else - ask!
  • Independent and hobbyist teams are especially welcome.

We can help match you with a driver and vehicle if you are testing systems, especially sensors. 

Confirmed Attendees

Competition

We will be running timing and scoring for best autonomous laps the full-sized 2.1 mile track. Any vehicle that can make the two mile lap is welcome to attempt.  Awards will be given for top performers in each class, with competition classes (e.g. "full-sized vehicle", "gas-powered go-kart", "teleoperated", etc.) to be determined as the event unfolds. 

If you are interested in sponsoring a challenge, please contact us at contact@selfracingcars.com.

Data

As with our last events, we will be sharing data collected with various sensors and systems. Developers building on your systems will be able to see what the output looks like in a real-world yet controlled situation.

Sign Up

Participants, please sign up to participate here, or send us an email at contact@selfracingcars.com.

Spectators (including press, investors, students, engineers), please sign up here.

If you are interested in sponsoring the event please send us an email as above.

Participate via Social Media

We've created a subreddit, /r/selfracingcars/ for discussing implementation of autonomous vehicles of any size.

Sign up for announcements at our mailing list, follow @selfracingcars on twitter, and follow us on Facebook.

Videos from 2017 event at Thunderhill Raceway

We produced some short videos with an event recap, and short summaries about our participants.

Overall event summary and race results!

AutonomouStuff, providing autonomy components and engineering 

SwiftNav, a high precision satellite-based positioning system

PointOne, a high precision localization system and winner of this year's race!

XSens, an inertial measurement system (IMU)

Right Turn Clyde, an autonomous go-kart

PolySync with their OSCC autonomous control platform

DIYRobocars, a miniature autonomous vehicle league

Dataset from event winner Point One Navigation

Point One Navigation, our April 2017 event winner, has just posted a dataset captured from their vehicle.

This data contains the system logs for Point One Navigation’s autonomous vehicle that won the Self Racing Cars event in April 2017.

The log files are simple CSV with commanded and actual actuation data as well as position, velocity and heading solutions and subsampled raw inertial data. Images are also available for Saturday’s run.

April 2017 Time Trial Results

Congratulations to all who competed in our April 1-2 event and thank you to everyone who came to watch!

The fastest fully autonomous laps for this event were:

Right Turn Clyde and Team Soulless (Udacity's student team) came just shy of full autonomous laps. We are excited to see them compete again at the next event, which is hopefully soon!

C8gUPrPUQAAx18E.jpg

Run your code on a real car with Udacity & PolySync

Udacity and PolySync have partnered to offer developers and students the opportunity to run code on their OSCC car at the next Self Racing Cars event.

Udacity is also a prize for the fastest lap of the track, so this is a good opportunity for anyone who wants to try their hand at laying down an autonomous hot lap.

More information about the challenge is available at Udacity's blog post.

Announcing our next event

Note - this event has passed. Subscribe to our announcements to find out about the one.

Announcing our next Event, April 1-2, 2017

Following the success of the inaugural event last year, Self Racing Cars returns with a new track day designed to push autonomous cars towards true race-ready shape.  We're expecting more cars, higher speeds, and some very clever engineering.  We will be running a testing and competition event at Thunderhill West on April 1-2, 2017

Testing and Demoing

Please apply to attend if you have any of the following things to test or demo:

  • Autonomous vehicles
  • Drivetrain innovation (electric or otherwise)
  • Sensors
  • Cameras
  • Software and Algorithms
  • Teleoperation
  • Connected Cars (v2v or v2i)

Independent and hobbyist teams are especially welcome. Smaller vehicles and robots can be tested and demoed in the paddock.

We can help match you with a driver and vehicle if you are testing systems, especially sensors. 

Competition

We will be running timing and scoring for best autonomous laps the full-sized 2.1 mile track. Any vehicle that can make the two mile lap is welcome to attempt.  Awards will be given for top performers in each class, with competition classes (e.g. "full-sized vehicle", "gas-powered go-kart", "teleoperated", etc.) to be determined as the event unfolds. 

Comma.ai will be sponsoring a prize for "fastest full track by comma neo vehicle." More details are available!

Udacity will be  competing and sponsoring a prize for “fastest full track by an independent or small company team” and “fastest 1/10th scale lap". More details are available!

If you are interested in sponsoring a challenge, please contact us at contact@selfracingcars.com.

We are currently working on simple vehicle build based on a CIK competition go-kart so that there is a starting point for a future competition class. We are also working on a simple radio flags system. Both of these will be documented as they develop.

Data

As with our last event, we will be sharing data collected with various sensors and systems. Developers building on your systems will be able to see what the output looks like in a real-world yet controlled situation.

Confirmed Attendees

Smaller Courses for Smaller Vehicles

Chris Anderson of DIYRobocars will be running two courses for smaller autonomous cars (1/10th scale and 1/16th scale), which can use cameras, GPS, LIDAR and other sensors to navigate the course. The larger track for 1/10th scale cars will have white lines and obstacles. The smaller track for 1/16th scale will be marked with RGB tape lanes. DIYRobocars also runs a monthly hack and test in Oakland, CA.

Sign Up

Please sign up to participate here, or send us an email at contact@selfracingcars.com.

1/10th and 1/16th scaled entrants should sign up at the DIYRoboCars meetup page.

Spectators (including press, investors, students, engineers), please sign up here.

Participate via Social Media

We've created a subreddit, /r/selfracingcars/ for discussing implementation of autonomous vehicles of any size.

Sign up for announcements at our mailing list, follow @selfracingcars on twitter, and follow us on Facebook.