TWITTER TUESDAY: CHALKBOT
By Mykal • Jul 14th, 2009 • Category: BLOG, DESIGN, FEATURESThe Tour De France bug bites me every year with a venom that consumes my life and TV schedule to all things Tour De France related. This is the first year that a fanboy likemyself can ACTUALLY become part of the tour .. Thanks to CHALKBOT
Writing messages in the ground with chalk has always been a part of the Tour De France, much like the graffiti on the Nurburgring in Germany. Some people think its art, some people think its necessary, some people think its trash. Personally I think what CHALKBOT is doing is pretty amazing.
Combining the digital world with the physical and use it to communicate messages of positivity and inspiration.
The Chalkbot takes input from text messages and Twitter posts sent by the public. The robot, a tractor-like device that’s pulled around by a truck, then paints those messages in large yellow letters along the Tour de France course.
The letters face the riders so they can read them on their journey during the grueling annual race, which ends July 26 in Paris.
Nathan Martin, CEO of Deeplocal, a mobile software company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, helped design the robot as part of an ad campaign for Nike.
He said the Chalkbot is part of a trend in art and marketing: Digital creations are taking on real-world forms to get noticed and to have greater impact.
“We have so much clutter and no editorship [online],” he said. “You can launch new Web sites all the time, but it’s really hard to stand out. I think the way to stand out is for people to think you have a real impact on your lives.”
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That sense of true impact is best achieved through real-world manifestations of online art, he said.
The temporary paint messages are a high-tech take on old traditions at the Tour de France, said Derek Kent, a spokesman for Nike.
“If you talk to any cyclist, they’ll tell you there’s a longstanding tradition to chalk messages of support,” he said. “And what we’ve done is taken that insight and bought it to another level, so that someone in Asia can participate in the Tour and feel a part of something bigger.”
The Chalkbot ad campaign ties in with Livestrong, nickname of the Lance Armstrong Foundation, which is devoted to cancer research and was founded by U.S. cyclist Armstrong, a cancer survivor.
Kent said many of the messages drawn by the Chalkbot are from cancer survivors or their friends and family.
People who send text messages or Twitter posts will be notified if their notes are chalked onto the road in France, Martin said.
The robot takes a picture of the words on the road and sends that image, along with GPS coordinates, to the person who submitted it, he said.
Martin said the Chalkbot was writing about 200 messages per day in the early days of the tour, which kicked off July 4. Some towns along the route have banned the robot from writing on their streets, but most sections of the course have supported the ad campaign, he said.
The robot writes its messages in paint that washes away quickly…
MAKE SURE you get your messages out to as many people as possible by sending CHALKBOT YOUR TWEETS / TEXTS!
text LIVESTRONG, followed by a message, to 36453.
for more info:
http://www.nike.com/nikeos/p/livestrong/en_US/chalk_messages
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/07/14/tour.france.chalkbot/index.html#cnnSTCText
Http://www.twitter.com/lancearmstrong
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