If there’s a word for near perfection in Power Racing, it begins with an S. Sector 67, the upstart hackerspace from Madison Wisconsin set out to show the world what they were capable of. In less than 10 months since their grand opening, they can now call themselves champions. The team worked for an astonishing 3 days to create the frame of the machine, and only a couple weeks to assemble the components together. These were not easy times though, as the team faced numerous technical challenges, and faced quite a few late evenings preparing their car for the season. With confidence they pulled up to Maker Faire, and immediately silenced anyone who doubted the capability of a new team amongst veterans.

With 5 victories this season, the most of any other team in PPPRS history, the team rose from the bottom to the absolute highest of highs. Despite a few hiccups this season, including the battery debacle that proved to be a red-herring by Maker Faire Detroit, the team rose above all challenges and challengers and can now proudly display the Tesla Cup to anyone who asks them what the hell the Tesla Cup is (for those of you not aware, that’s our title trophy. Just like the Stanley Cup, with embedded LEDs)


The machine that Sector completed was nothing short of a masterpiece of cheap engineering and clever but legal rule bending. The car scraped and scavenged for high quality (yet ancient) motors and the frame was built from an aluminum art easel of all things. The on-board dash with GPS, speedo, live pit-transmitted telemetry and warning lights ablaze was all within the hacker spirit of “why the hell not?” The level of technical wizardry in the machine was impressive and had actually saved the team from potential motor burnouts.  Few machines like that have existed before, but it is certain that many more will be created. Hackerspaces from across the Midwest should be excited by next season, as there will be more contenders with crazy ideas. We hope that Sector 67 will return with even crazier ideas.


So now what? Well the Tesla Cup is carefully in their hands, a new slew of rules and regulations will be introduced in 2012 to challenge the challengers. The series, as it has every year, must evolve to keep hackerspaces intrigued and will now focus heavily on both mechanical and strategic contests. Another angle will be an emphasis of new moxie-bent concepts that will turn the speed race down a few notches (to keep things safe) and embrace other outlets for spaces to express themselves with. Let it be no mistake; engineers will have an interesting time adapting to some of the new races, and will still enjoy building machines that are both fast and creative. After all, part of the fun of PPPRS is witnessing this evolution and watching teams adapt to it. Speeds will still have an impact, but it will no longer be THE needed goal. Cars will be expected to do more with less, race a larger variety of types of races and designers will be faced to create innovative solutions to even more hell-bent problems.