The Speed and Thrills: 2023 NXP Cup Winner Revealed

The twelfth NXP Cup EMEA finals were held a month ago in Bucharest, Romania, where 18 teams from seven countries competed for the highly sought-after prize. A total of 50 university students from the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Kosovo, Lebanon, Morocco, the Netherlands, Romania and Slovakia participated. The cutting-edge autonomous racing car event was streamed live on YouTube, and hosted for the second time by Ian Buckley, the presenter of the weekly Electromaker YouTube show.

NXP Cup 2023 Provides the Right Visibility

Each year, the NXP Cup invites participants from academia, robotics clubs and hacker communities in EMEA to come up with the best in autonomous vehicle coding and construction. Each team builds and programs a self-driving model robot car focusing on precision, maneuverability, reliability and speed. The entrants can buy the basic NXP Cup car kit   and Git Book, and are invited to use a range of NXP solutions, including MCUs and MPUs.

“The technology, university support and the incredible partner ecosystem give students opportunities to learn key collaborative teamwork skills and become familiar with core technologies to build autonomous robots”

Lars Reger, CTO, NXP

This competition connects young technology enthusiasts with NXP, providing them a great opportunity to challenge themselves on wide-ranging tech topics including programming and configuration. In doing this, participants are able to leverage the visibility that the program provides in order to showcase their passion and “out-of-the-box” thinking. Registered teams first pass the qualification stage in order to reach the finals.

Vying for the Top Spot

The teams compete in two races designed to put the self-driving vehicles through their robotic paces. In the first race, the cars must complete one lap on a high-speed track while keeping at least two wheels on the road. The contestants are given a maximum of three attempts to complete the test, which qualifies them for race two, the Mouser Lap of Honor. In the second race, remaining vehicles have one attempt to avoid crashing into an obstacle on the track and must complete both races to have any chance of becoming victorious.

NXP Cup Winners Take the Trophy

About 50 teams registered for the 2023 NXP Cup and only 18 of them, representing seven countries, reached the finals. The finals took place on the 10^th and 11^th of May in Bucharest, Romania. MEA, from Polytech Montpellier , France emerged winners, claiming a prize of EUR €3K. Their impressive performance came on the back of their success last year where they took first and second positions.

In second and third positions at the 2023 NXP Cup were Team RAScar from University of Lübeck, Germany and Team Nitro from the Technical University of Iasi, Romania. They won EUR €2K and EUR €1K respectively.

NXP Cup EMEA 2023 is Over and What a Fantastic Competition it Was

The Showdown Returns Next Year

Anticipation is already gearing up toward next year when the race returns, with participation open to students in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Yet again, participants will have an opportunity to showcase their innovation and put their skills and abilities to the test. Registration for the 2024 NXP Cup opens in October this year. Until then, catch up with the speed and thrills of the 2023 NXP Cup in this video.