Welcome to the World of Professional Drone Racing – Slate Magazine

Maker Faire’s most likely candidate for fame was Loo, a young and photogenic product design engineer with a lifelong obsession with remote control vehicles and an intensive practice regimen. At the races, Loo steered his self-made “Green Meanie” bird to victory, wiping the floor with his opponents and occasionally throwing in a showy flip or turn for the spectators, who’d cheer or gasp at the right intervals. While the audiences were engaged, the racing drones themselves were small and hard to see. In the future drone racing leagues will likely start handing out their own FPV goggles to bystanders, so they can see the same first-person action the pilot is seeing, or maybe projecting split-screen versions, like a game of Mario Kart. After one race, a pair of excited kids came up to Loo, begging for an autograph: He signed the paper and posed for a photo, beaming. “He got to sign his first autograph!” his wife said.