The video follows a first‑time hackathon attendee who tags along with PEX Labs founders Daniel and Maisha to capture the 48‑hour Formula Null hackathon. The event challenges participants to convert discarded electronics into electric race vehicles. Early chaos erupts when participants arrive two hours early, forcing the organizers to scramble to set up 3D printers, cardboard track walls, and badges. Over the next day, teams work on wildly creative builds: a rice‑cooker‑powered RC car, a toaster‑converted RC car that also bakes waffles, a drone assembled from a laptop, and an arcade‑controller‑powered vehicle. The documentary intersperses candid interviews, technical explanations (Arduino, Raspberry Pi Pico W, UART communication, 3D‑printed chassis), and moments of fatigue, pizza‑fuelled sustenance, and humor. By the end, the organizers reflect on the event’s energy, the community spirit, and the lessons learned from rapid prototyping under pressure.
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This is Daniel and Maisha. They're the minds behind PEX Labs, a handheld game console. But beyond building consoles, they love a good side quest. Their latest? A hackathon called Formula Null. The challenge? In just 48 hours, builders become racers, turning e-waste into electric race cars. As someone who's never been to a hackathon before, knows nothing about hardware, and couldn't even tell you what a 3D printer looked like—
3D printers?
3D printers! Okay, okay, sick, okay. So I grabbed my camera, tagged along, and here's what I documented.
It is now midnight. We have like nothing set up.
Hello, nothing is set up.
Yeah.
I'm gonna kill myself.
Wait, that's not friend— family friendly. Alright, it's 1 hour later. Set up the printers. I dumped all the hardware on the desk. Maisha's passed out. Yeah, we're kind of cooked.
Okay, Daniel, what happened?
So basically we made the website super early and we put the hacking starts at 9, so Victor over here pulled up. The hacking actually starts at 11. So maybe everyone's coming super early and we're not ready. But we ball, we ball. Welcome to the racetrack. It's a work in progress.
Oh my God.
Welcome.
Oh my gosh.
These cardboard walls, we had to mass produce in my apartment.
Yeah.
Took us like 3 people, like literally 6 hours. We went at it until 4. We finished the last one. We just all collapsed. Like, give me a break.
Before everyone comes, this is what the area looks like. Look at these trophies. They're 3D printed. This is so amazing. You can do anything, Barbie.
That's so good.
Look at these, actually. 3D printers. 3D printers. Okay, okay, sick. Okay, they'll be using 3D printers. Oh, more people. Everyone's showing up. Oh no, everyone's showing up. It's supposed to start at 11, but everyone's coming at 9 because there's like a mix-up. This is where all the racers, all the builders are going to be hacking. We have this room right here. Oh, look, there's a hacking space right here. There's going to be around 100 people. Yeah, and look at these really cool badges. They did this themselves. So this is Jay, right? Yes. Okay, so you made this costume for this?
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's not— I already had the jumpsuit and I put Trash Mechanic on the back.
Oh yeah. Oh my god. Wait, so you're gonna shred it up?
No, we're gonna just cut the bottom.
Oh, cut the bottom and then the wheels, put wheels under. Yeah. Whoa, you guys are gonna kill it. So everyone has started hacking, guys, and we're gonna go and ask a few intro questions. Hey team, hey, would you guys want to quickly answer a few questions? What are you guys gonna make? Do you already have a plan?
Probably a rice cooker RC car.
Ooh, rice cooker. Oh, okay, that's so sick. Okay guys, good luck.
Thanks.
Hey team, would you guys Do you guys want to introduce quickly yourselves for a video? Who wants to talk? Who wants to hold the mic? Or maybe, okay, I'll just hold it. What are you guys making?
What are you using? So we're planning on repurposing this laptop here into a drone.
Ooh. Is it going to fly then?
Yeah.
Let's hope.
We're hoping.
What are you guys making?
So this is— our e-waste. It's probably too light, but you know, we'll use this for now. Yeah, we want to also try to do the autonomous part because, uh, it would be cool, but we don't know if we will get there yet.
Good luck everyone! And then what are you guys making? That's a big question.
We literally found this arcade controller from e-waste bin.
You guys are gonna do so well. I'm gonna probably check in in a few hours, see how everything is going, see how you guys are planning already. Yeah, it's just racetrack. Yeah, something like that. It's not that, it's not that strict. Yeah, yeah, something simple.
We're making a waffle machine that can make a waffle while it drives. We took apart a Chromebook, and it didn't work anymore though, so it's not, it wasn't working. It actually did turn on as we were taking it apart momentarily, and we don't know why, but that's okay. And then yeah, we're just gonna throw 4 motors on each wheel and hope for the best. For coding, we have our motors that we're gonna control with our Arduino, and then we're working on sending values from an Xbox controller which is hooked up to our base station, our car over a Raspberry Pi Pico W, which is— can be basically its own access point. Those will send the values over UART to an Arduino, and then from there we'll be able to do stuff with them. So we are turning a toaster into an RC car. Mostly it's consisting of doing a 3D CAD of like kind of a chassis that can hold the front wheels, which we decided to have them unpowered, and then one single back wheel which we're going to 3D print and that will be powered. But the front wheels are on kind kind of this steering assembly, and that's kind of the layout of our project. And then we're gonna have the batteries and the Pi in there.
Wow, the pizza came! What's the pizza? Is it one meal? It's just one. This is one meal. Whoa, what's for dinner? Pizza! So more boxes are coming for pizza. Julia, we have to hang out! We do! Oh, it needs to be 20?
No, I just wanted to max out the voltage.
Oh, okay.
And then not only that, but I I have this. Now I'm gonna convert 20 to 40 to get extra power into my waffle machine.
Okay, and this is the mini waffle. Ah!
Oh my god!
Bro! Guys, what the heck? Oh my god! I got it on camera! So how are you holding up after so many hours?
Right now we're fine. We just got back from dinner. We took a nice little break. Like, we're chilling.
Like, ahead of schedule or in panic mode right now?
Reasonably on schedule to get some amount of sleep tonight. Some amount.
Yeah, how's it going?
So, uh, not bad. Uh, basically when I get close to it, it slows down. It doesn't work very well, but like you can go on the ground and it might like— it might accidentally kill itself, but it kind of—
it moves. How are you holding up after so many hours?
Honestly, I feel pretty good. I haven't even had coffee today. Kind of just been eating pizza.
Good morning!
Good morning!
Did you guys do all-nighters?
No, we actually slept.
Okay, good. That's amazing.
Okay, this is the chassis. It will have— it's in there and the batteries and stuff.
Doesn't work.
The motors spin, but— Dude, do you want to add one more motor?
Dude, I won't.
Okay, what's happening?
We're gonna put them on the car and make it look like amazing.
What's this feather? Why is the feather there?
Aerodynamics.
So when it goes fast, the wind like catches it. Same with the thing in the back. Okay. Yeah, yeah.
So what did you guys just tell me? What happened?
We are on V3 of the build, but it turns out Steve was too much of a badass for those motors. He hasn't slept in 2 days, if you can't tell.
Oh my god, I can't sleep.
So he's a little bit tired. That Steve can fly.
Oh wow, okay.
I hope I don't get cancer from all the soldering.
Like, for real. Okay, Daniel, so we officially wrapped up the hackathon. How do you feel? Give me your overall thoughts.
It was as chaotic as I expected it to be. I think the best moment of the hackathon though was when the race started. I think like maybe it was the second or third match and I realized at that moment I could step away and then the entire thing would just run itself. So like it really felt like I did all this work pushing a rock up a hill and then I could just let it go and it had the velocity to go on its own. And that was super cool. Like a bunch of my friends were like stepping in and just taking ownership and stuff. It was exactly as funny as I imagined it. It was definitely worth it. And a bunch of people told me it was like the best hackathon they've ever done. So it's like really made my day.
