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.
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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!
To launch the new Xbox One exclusive game ReCore, London based PR company Assembly Media wanted to bring the star of the game to life. Mack, a canine corebot, is usually running around saving the world however we wanted to catch up with him on his day off!
Cue Robo Challenge!
We were very excited to bring this unique character to life however it had to be right, he had to look like he jumped straight out of the game. Mack, like all canines, has complex joints to enable him to move. Naturally the game version of Mack isn’t concerned with gravity or how his legs would have to actually work so this would be the biggest challenge. Our team set about designing an internal skeleton which would house the 12 motors for his legs and all the electronics. Custom made gearboxes were required to ensure all the mechanical elements were concealed and yet strong enough to actuate the character and take his weight. Once the skeleton was complete it required over 1000 hours of 3d printing to create all the body work before every little detailed was hand airbrushed.
The results were incredible! Mack looked exactly as he did in the game which created some amazing content. He also met many of his fans at Game stores around the country kicking up a lot of media attention.
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.
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.
2016 saw the return of the iconic robot battling show ‘Robot Wars‘ on BBC 2. Presented by Dara O’Brain & Angela Scanlon, this exhilarating show sees amateur builders create their own fighting robots at home. Each team brings their creation to the bullet proof Robot Wars Arena in an all out contest to be crowned Robot Wars Champions.
With such groundbreaking advances in technology and specialist know-how required to make the show possible, Mentorn TV needed a partner to help make this reboot a reality. We jumped at the opportunity to help bring back the show which was a huge inspiration to our team. Our headline project though was to design and create the iconic House Robots. These included Sir Killalot, Matilda, Shunt & Dead Metal which were all created in house at Robo Challenge. All hugely upgraded, modernised and more brutal than ever, these giant guardians of the arena are ready to take on any competitors that stray into their zones! Robo Challenge also provided key consultancy services to help design the new arena, develop how the format works and create new rules & safety regulations for teams appearing on the show. Our experienced team also ran the technical side of the event during filming to ensure the battles ran smoothly and to the highest safety standards.
We were delighted to be part of such an iconic show which returned to BBC 2 for three series and 4 special episodes. A show that enlivens, inspires, teaches and entertains.
Samsung unveiled the world’s first 4g enabled camera, the Galaxy NX. A camera that allows you to share quality images instantly via 4g. Samsung’s challenge was getting photographers to believe this was possible.
Step in Robo Challenge. Our team designed & created a robot as unique as the camera itself, the NX Rover. Inspired by the Mars rover and the products design & functionality, the NX Rover was fully controllable online allowing people to accurately manoeuvre the camera, take photos and share them instantly via 4g. The NX Rover was sent on a remarkable journey exploring the planet and visiting amazing events. Thousands of pictures were taken and shared with over a million people. The Rover gained some serious attention from the media and was shortlisted for the Innovation award at Cannes as well as winning multiple industry awards.
Robo Challenge made this look so simple. Their attention to detail was amazing, always there to help us with any issue or silly question we had, always there to make sure everything runs and operates smoothly. The result was amazing and thanks to that we won a lot of different types or prizes many of which were awarded for the Innovation category.
All we can say is that working with Robo Challenge was a real pleasure. They are always our go-to team when it comes to building something that needs to “wow”
– Alex Budin, Technology Expert, Cheil UK.
Technology – 3D cad design & rendering, 3D printing, CNC machining, custom software, airbrushing, remote control and electronic systems.
Outcomes – 11000 pictures were taken and shared with 1.62million people worldwide. The NX Rover was shortlisted for Cannes Lions Innovation and was awarded bronze in the Kinsale Sharks Digital category, silver in the Interactive category of the Campaign Big Awards and the Wood Pencil in Direct Response at the D&AD Awards.
