& News About Upcoming Races
July 24, 1995
RARS is the Robot Auto Racing Simulation, a competition for
programmers and an on-going challenge for practicioners of Artificial
Intelligence and real-time adaptive optimal control. It consists of
a simulation of the physics of cars racing on a track, a graphic
display of the race, and a separate control program (robot "driver")
for each car. All RARS software and activities are free and open to
the public. For more information e-mail to m...@cac.psu.edu.
Contents
Authors Point Standings
Upcoming Races
July 23 Competitors
July 23 Race Commentary
July 23 Race Report
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Expert Class Point standings
Randy Saint 37 pts (U.S.A.) Ramdu
Jussi Pajala 25 pts (Finland) WappuCar & Bubble
Safai Ma 22 pts (Canada) Burns
Mike Inman 20 pts (U.S.A.) Indretti
Jeremy Weatherford 12 pts (U.S.A.) JXBot
Bill Benedict 10 pts (U.S.A.) Rusty
Tim Battersby 10 pts (Canada) Emily
Nicole Greiber 7 pts (Germany) Marvin
Muir Lee Harding 6 pts (U.S.A.) racer_X
George Doster 2 pts (U.S.A.) JayMan1
Nathaniel Thurston 2 pts (U.S.A.) Phase
Novice Class Points:
Oscar Gustafsson 22 pts (Sweden) OscCar2
Tristrom Cooke 13 pt (Australia) Bingo1
Grant Reeve 11 pts (New Zealand) Piranha
Carl Burke 8 pts (U.S.A.) Blender2
Patrick Tierney 5 pts (Canada) Heath2
Thomas Rooney 2 pts (U.S.A.) goCART
Daniel Ash (not yet raced) (U.S.A.) Sarah
Robert Skupinski (not yet raced) (U.S.A.) Carski
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The Next Four RARS Race Meets
August 6, and again on September 3:
No. of races 2 novice and 2 expert
Tracks: S1.TRK and S2.TRK, one race on each
Laps: 80 each race
Software version: 0.63b (or latest variant of 0.60)
Surface Type: 1
no practice, random starting order.
August 20:
No. of races: 6 novice and 6 expert
Track: oval2
Laps: 10 each race
Software version: 0.63b (or latest variant of 0.60)
Surface type: 0
no practice on race day, practice at home all you want!
The default starting order system will be used, i.e. alternating
random and reversed.
September 17:
To Be Announced.....
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Competitors, July 23, Novice Class:
Daniel Ash U.S.A. Sarah
Robert Skupinski U.S.A. Carski
(no novice races were run due to insufficient entries)
Competitors, July 23, Expert Class:
Safai Ma Canada Burns
Jussi Pajala Finland Bubble
Randy Saint U.S.A. Ramdu
Mike Inman U.S.A. Indretti
Nicole Greiber Germany Marvin
Jeremy Weatherford U.S.A. JXBot3
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Race Commentary by M. Timin
The expert races were dominated by Randy Saint's Ramdu robot. When
luck gave him a favored starting position he could not be caught.
When he didn't start in front he was usually able to catch and pass
the slower cars without serious damage. In fact Ramdu took first
place in 5 out of the 6 races.
There was a lot of passing and re-passing during all of the races,
and many duels for a spot near the front. These mostly did not
involve Ramdu, who was usually well out in front. In one race,
however, Burns was ahead with Ramdu on his tail. Three times Ramdu
dove for the inside at the start of the curve, momentarily gaining
the lead, but each time Ramdu would go wide leaving the turn and
Burns would re-pass on the inside. Ramdu persisted however, and
eventually wrested the lead from Burns.
Most of the cars were able to handle the traffic well enough that raw
speed was the dominant factor. Here are the speed capabilities of
all of today's entrants, as measured for 7 laps on an empty track:
Ramdu - 75.25
Burns - 72.56
Bubble - 72.00
Indretti - 70.41
JXBot3 - 70.3
Sarah - 70.12 (novice, did not compete)
Marvin - 69.84
Carski - 66.71 (novice, did not compete)
Ramdu was surpisingly faster than the others. Observing the cars it
was clear that Ramdu's technique was unique. He appears to keep to
the extreme outside on the straights, then throw the car into a wild
skid when nearing the curve, diving toward the inner rail. He would
stay close to the inner rail for a large part of the curve, but then
drift to the outside when nearing the straight.
The type 0 surface that we use for the oval track is supposed to
simulate a loose surface. It is interesting to note that real drivers
who compete on loose surfaces use a similar driving technique.
Mostly the drivers did about as one would expect after observing the
above speed capabilities. There were two exceptions, however.
Bubble was a bit timid in traffic, and would often lose speed when
near other cars. This led him to do less well than his 72 mph
capability would indicate. JXBot3 on the other hand seemed to thrive
in the traffic, and managed a third place overall although his speed
was fifth among the competing experts.
There were no novice races held, due to a lack of competitors. This
was probably due to the re-submission requirement that was recently
announced.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The July 23 Results:
There were six expert races on the oval2 track. All races were ten
laps. The output files were lost for the first two races, due to
human and computer screw-ups. However, two IRC observers and
myself agreed that these were the results of the first two races:
1 Ramdu 10 pts
2 Indretti 6 pts
3 JXBot3 4 pts
4 Bubble 3 pts
5 Burns 2 pts
6 Marvin 1 pts
1 Ramdu 10 pts
2 Burns 6 pts
3 Bubble 4 pts
4 Marvin 3 pts
5 Indretti 2 pts
6 JXBot3 1 pts
We do have the computer output for the last four races:
6 cars for 10 laps. The track was oval2.trk. The drivers were:
Marvin, Bubble, Ramdu, Burns, JXBot3, and Indretti.
The initial RVG seed was 59447.
results of race 1: (note: actually race 4)
starting positions:
JXBot3, Ramdu, Indretti, Marvin, Bubble, and Burns.
1 Ramdu avg spd 74.67 10 laps 1766 damage 136 fuel 10 pts accum
2 Burns avg spd 71.64 10 laps 8953 damage 140 fuel 6 pts accum
3 JXBot3 avg spd 69.65 9 laps 9592 damage 140 fuel 4 pts accum
4 Bubble avg spd 69.28 9 laps 4024 damage 139 fuel 3 pts accum
5 Indretti avg spd 69.13 9 laps 8327 damage 137 fuel 2 pts accum
6 Marvin avg spd 68.99 9 laps 3250 damage 139 fuel 1 pts accum
results of race 2:
starting positions:
Burns, Bubble, Marvin, Indretti, Ramdu, and JXBot3.
1 Ramdu avg spd 70.88 10 laps 9500 damage 136 fuel 20 pts accum
2 JXBot3 avg spd 69.57 10 laps 10251 damage 139 fuel 10 pts accum
3 Marvin avg spd 68.84 9 laps 7756 damage 139 fuel 5 pts accum
4 Indretti avg spd 67.92 9 laps 5124 damage 137 fuel 5 pts accum
5 Burns avg spd 67.65 9 laps 22266 damage 140 fuel 8 pts accum
6 Bubble avg spd 67.44 9 laps 6113 damage 139 fuel 4 pts accum
results of race 3:
starting positions:
Ramdu, Marvin, Indretti, JXBot3, Bubble, and Burns.
1 Burns avg spd 72.56 10 laps 0 damage 140 fuel 18 pts accum
2 Bubble avg spd 71.81 10 laps 527 damage 139 fuel 10 pts accum
3 Indretti avg spd 70 9 laps 3044 damage 137 fuel 9 pts accum
4 Ramdu avg spd 69.74 9 laps 18254 damage 136 fuel 23 pts accum
5 JXBot3 avg spd 69.38 9 laps 27017 damage 140 fuel 12 pts accum
6 Marvin avg spd 69.2 9 laps 1393 damage 139 fuel 6 pts accum
results of race 4:
starting positions:
Burns, Bubble, JXBot3, Indretti, Marvin, and Ramdu.
1 Ramdu avg spd 73.47 10 laps 4562 damage 135 fuel 33 pts accum
2 Marvin avg spd 67.29 10 laps 4944 damage 139 fuel 12 pts accum
3 JXBot3 avg spd 66.39 9 laps 29976 damage 139 fuel 16 pts accum
4 Indretti avg spd 65.98 9 laps 9458 damage 136 fuel 12 pts accum
5 Burns avg spd 65.84 9 laps 29795 damage 140 fuel 20 pts accum
6 Bubble avg spd 66.02 9 laps 7147 damage 139 fuel 11 pts accum
Adding the points for the first two races, we get these point totals:
season pts
1 Ramdu 53 pts 10
2 Burns 28 pts 6
3 JXBot3 21 pts 4
4 Indretti 20 pts 3
5 Bubble 19 pts 2
6 Marvin 16 pts 1