Equinox, the high-performance lifestyle leader, put City workers through their world-record paces with the launch of ‘Bishopsgate Bolt’ – a cutting edge running track that pit participants against the world’s fastest runner in a virtual setting, right in the heart of the City.
Athlete, Thom Evans was the first person to take on the challenge, completing the Bishopsgate Bolt in 10.93 seconds, 1.35 seconds behind the current world record.
The 20-metre-long, two-lane track was designed to determine each participant’s 10 metre sprint time . The second lane featured LED chevrons that lit up to display the time it takes for the current fastest person on earth to run 10 metres.
City workers were invited to take to the track on Thursday 28th November at Bishops Square. Robo Challenge designed & created this unique sprint track along with State-of-the-art laser technology recording each participant’s 10-metre time. The bespoke software recorded every runners fastest time and compared them in a live league table to the fastest man on the planet.
Motorbike rider Grace is in the driving seat as she introduces the pre-school audience to some of the biggest, fastest and most amazing machines in the world along with her side kick Speedy!
Speedy is a remote controlled character designed, created & puppeteer-ed in house here at Robo Challenge. This cute & friendly character guides Grace through each episode & reveals the special challenges.
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Nissan has been sponsoring the Champions League for a number of years now so to promote their connection of smart cars and grassroots football PitchR was created!
PitchR is capable of autonomously drawing football pitches anywhere in the world! The fully custom built rover uses its on board GPS to precisely paint a football pitch of any configuration. While the aircraft grade machined aluminium chassis and motors enabled PitchR to step over the lines it had painted.
Our friends at Unit9 commissioned us to design and develop the physical rover while they developed the intelligent software. Fitting such a complex and intricate drive system into the sleek chassis required creating an innovative new drive platform. Entirely machined from billet aircraft grade aluminium, each wheel & leg was independently controllable to enable PitchR to step over painted lines, adjust its weight balance and turn on the spot making PitchR an incredibly versatile robot. Once we had developed the chassis we had to install a dual paint system and the clever electronics to control the robot. Finally the bodywork was entirely 3D printed and finished to the high Nissan concept car standard.
The results were incredible. In just 3 months of design, development and testing PitchR was painting football pitches. This is just the beginning of the Nissan Football Lab and we are excited to see where PitchR goes next!
London based PR agency Cheil wanted to impress Converse trainers with a truly innovative idea which was based on the iconic Chuck Converse shoes. The idea was to create the ‘Boris Bikes’ of Skateboards which are loaned to the user based on them wearing a specially adapted pair of Converse Chucks.
Cheil immediately got Robo Challenge involved to make this idea a reality. With just 1 week to create a solution our team produced this unique skateboard rack & modified a pair of Chucks with RFID tags. Users simply walk up to the skateboard rack, which identifies them wearing the Converse Chucks, and releases a skate board!
It was a great way to add an interesting innovation to the iconic footwear which earned the team a Bronze Chuck Trophy!
2017 saw the World Ski Championships hosted in St Moritz, Switzerland. With such a high profile event on the horizon, telecoms giant Swisscom wanted to reach out to fans and get their messages of support across to the athletes. What better way to do it than huge snow drawings!
London based production company Unit9 were assigned the challenge and needed a partner to help bring this ambitious idea to life. We worked with the team to help develop 3 GPS controlled self driving snow blowers and modified them to make the perfect drawings. These 3 rovers were then sent on a 15km mission to write inspirational messages to the atheltes on a huge 1.5km long snow canvass.
The results were incredible. The drawings could be seen by helicopter and on the slopes where the 2017 World Championships were taking place. The online content reached 1.5 million views and gained some incredible media attention.
Tesco wanted to bring a bit of theatre & fun to their home deliveries for the halloween season in 2016 so BBH London got in touch to create the most spooktacular delivery van ever!
Our team set about modifying an existing Tesco delivery van with all manner of spooky gadgets, gizmos, sound effects and a rusty paint scheme. We also added a huge drawbridge which opened up to reveal Tesco’s amazing halloween products while a false wall allowed Tesco staff to scare our unsuspecting families! There were confetti streamers, actors with head dropping rigs & dry ice which added to spooky drama.
The results were amazing with the online video reaching over 1.3 million views and attracting a host of media attention.
When London based PR company Havas Sports & Entertainment Cake wanted to launch Titanfall 2 with a bang they contacted Robo Challenge to help bring the game to life!
The aim was to recreate a training level from the shooter game then create a working airsoft gun that looks like it’s popped straight out of the game. With this in mind we immediately started working with EA to redevelop the ‘Carbine’ weapon ready for super high detail 3D printing. Once the 200 hours of 3d printing was complete we set about adding the internal structure & airsoft mechanism before fine detail airbrushing was completed.
The results were spectacular. Celebrities were invited to a special Titanfall 2 day where they were trained up with the Carbine gun and dropped straight into the game. The Carbine gun was a fully working model which looked exactly like its digital counter part. It now sits pride of place in EA’s offices.
“We had a happy team and an extremely happy client as you saw. Very impressed with the final model, it looked great! ” Liam Thompson, HSE Cake
To inspire people at home to get involved in Sport Relief, Blue Peter presenter Lindsay Russell became the Wave Runner. In a feat never attempted before, Lindsay set about preparing to cross the Irish Sea in nothing more than an inflatable zorb ball.
Being such an ambitious project Blue Peter needed a crack team of experts who could not only design and create a custom zorb ball but could develop something unique to cope with the rigours of crossing an ocean. Robo Challenge were immediately brought in to consult on the project to ensure the unique challenge could be successfully completed safely. We developed a special rig which was tested with the RNLI to ensure the ball couldn’t roll over or sink in heavy seas.
The results were amazing. Despite weather conditions not being suitable Lindsay managed an incredible 30km before the wind took her too far off course. It was an amazing achievement which inspired Blue Peter views to get involved in Sport Relief and we were very proud to have helped Lindsay make the challenge possible.
Reverse Engineers is an amazing show on Channel 4 which sees Rachel Riley, joined by Alex Brooker & Jamie Laing, design and create some incredible future tech using innovative green energy.
To make the show possible Lemonade Money TV contacted Robo Challenge to talk through this ambitious new show and develop ideas that might just work. We were then tasked with modifying existing green technologies such as Bio Beans & Pavgen’s energy producing tiles to develop some innovative new products for the show which might just take off in todays world. Behold the Kinetic Staircase, the Bio Beans furniture & Coffee paint!
This was such a fun project to work on which required lots of creative thinking, problem solving and most importantly, big tech builds!
Skylanders Superchargers is the latest game in the iconic Skylanders series which sees out of this world vehicles race on imaginary circuits. One of the great features in the game is Supercharging your vehicle by adding modifications for more speed & power!
The Moment & AKQA, creative PR companies from London, thought what better way to launch this exciting new game than to supercharge an actual vehicle, Skylanders style! It was an amazing idea but somehow it needed bringing to life. Robo Challenge was promptly tasked with getting a standard sleigh, towed by a donkey, and revamping it into a supercharged, super awesome, super speedy sleigh to take on Chaos, the villain from the game. The results were amazing! A huge flame throwing Molten Booster exhaust was added along with the Ink Jets & a Rift Engine straight out of the game.
