What it takes to be a drone racer

One cold, dreary afternoon in 2014, Jordan Temkin took his drone to Chautauqua Park in Boulder, Colorado. He put on a pair of goggles that filled his view with the live video feed from the drone's tiny camera. He'd built the drone frame from scratch using a 3D printer, finishing it with parts he'd bought online. It took about a month for it to take off straight. Eventually, it could hover around his backyard, so one day he took it to the park and began gingerly flying around. You can still find the video feed of this first flight on YouTube. Temkin flies slowly and carefully at first, meandering around the asphalt path. But before long, he flies the drone up, over and then around a rocky peak before diving toward the ground and pulling up a split second before disaster. At one point, Temkin appears in the video, sitting on the asphalt path as the drone loops around. "It really felt like I was flying," he said.