Red Bull Soapbox Racer Build Meeting #1

Every year since the year 2000, the Red Bull energy drink company has held public soapbox car races all over the world, including in London.

Teams from the local community are encouraged to join the competitions, in which people build dodgy homemade motorless vehicles and then drive them at breakneck speed through a racecourse full of “features” (aka traps).

In Red Bull’s own words: “[e]ach hand-made machine is fuelled by nothing but sheer courage, the force of gravity and perhaps a little Red Bull. This unique, non-motorised racing event challenges both experienced racers and amateurs alike to design and build outrageous soapbox dream machines and compete against the clock in a downhill race.”

Oxhack will be fielding a race team this year, although it hasn’t yet been decided whether the team members will enter as themselves or under the Oxhack banner. We have welding! We have sewing! We have programming! We have Star Wars LARP costumes, and the remains of a 6×6 ft. animatronic giant pink tiger fur letter M! We have persistence of vision light-painting, loads of more secret geekery, and we even have a possible £500 budget for this if we can get enough people involved!

The judges award points for creativity as well as race success, so people from all crafting backgrounds are definitely needed!

So please come on down and join us for our first build meeting TONIGHT, to go over the race rules, technical specs and appearance aspirations for this, and decide what on Earth we’re going to build!