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Local hackerspace Pumping Station: One plans a national Power Wheels race.
For children of the ’80s and ’90s, there’s a typical lament when it comes to Power Wheels: “Someone I knew had one, but my parents wouldn’t buy one for me.” The battery-powered vehicles, child-size adaptations of actual autos such as Jeeps and Mustangs, were the toys of privileged kids.
Such was the case for Jim Burke, a 23-year-old graphic designer who’s organizing a Power Wheels race in conjunction with Make magazine’s Maker Faire in Detroit, July 31–August 1. “My neighbor down the street had a Power Wheel, a little Corvette or something, and I was like, ‘That’s not fair!’” Burke says. “My parents told me, ‘They cost too much. Now here’s a pedal car.’”
Burke had all but forgotten about the pain of growing up sans Power Wheels until last spring. He and a couple of friends salvaged one of the mini cars from a Dumpster off North Avenue. The self-described hackers—tech-savvy, crafty hobbyists who enjoy modifying everything from computers to simple machines—diagnosed and fixed the problem (a dead battery), squeezed in front of the steering wheel and began scooting around, giggling like five-year-olds.
Several weeks later, in June, Burke hosted a one-day Power Racing Series, the seed of this year’s national event. Several teams formed within Burke’s hackerspace, Pumping Station: One, a hacker cooperative that rents a large workshop brimming with tools in the industrial western outskirts of Lakeview. Trolling Craigslist before the event, Burke found someone from Huntley, a Northwest suburb, to sell him eight Power Wheels for $150. “The Achilles’ heel of Power Wheels is that the batteries go out. So the parents in this guy’s small neighborhood would have him replace the batteries. After a couple times, they’d just say, ‘Eh, you keep it.’ He had a backyard full of them!” Among those cherry-picked: a couple of Pepto-Bismol–pink Barbie Jeeps, an übertiny SUV called the Lil’ Quad and a Hummer dubbed “Americar.”
The races last June produced harrowing tales of vehicles buckling under the weight of adult bodies. On the ride from PS: One HQ to the track in an empty lot just blocks away, Americar had big problems. “The front cracked and the wheels popped off,” Burke says. “Then the steering snapped and the column broke, so the driver shoved a screwdriver through a notch where the steering wheel used to be and finished driving with that. He even managed to win one event!”
For this year’s more ambitious Maker Faire outing, Burke has reached out to hackerspaces in Atlanta, Detroit, Kansas City and Milwaukee to soup up their own Power Wheels vehicles. But he says anyone seriously interested is welcome to form a team, modify a car and race.
On their website, Burke and company will document the pimping of their Power Wheels dune-buggy-style vehicle, sourced for $200 from a Toys“R”Us clearance sale, as an instructional for other teams that might have the same engineering difficulties. PS: One’s team members have already replaced the plastic frame with welded steel and taken out the tiny battery in favor of two car batteries that will increase the top speed from 5mph to 25mph.
Teams must start with a Power Wheels frame (no go-karts, people!) and use the original wheels (though they can be reinforced); the budget cap is $500. Burke says he’s received some amusing inquiries. “In jest, one of the groups asked, ‘Is it legal if we put a jet engine on the back end?’ At least I think it was in jest. Sometimes hackers make you wonder.”
Sign up your Power Wheels team and start hacking at powerracingseries.org.
