Robot's road messages cheer cyclists, spectators in France
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Chalkbot, a mobile robot sponsored by Nike and cyclist Lance Armstrong's Livestrong Foundation, prints messages on the pavement in front of cyclists competing now in the Tour de France. -
Chalkbot, a mobile robot sponsored by Nike and cyclist Lance Armstrong's Livestrong Foundation, prints messages on the pavement in front of cyclists competing now in the Tour de France.
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Winding its way along the route of the Tour de France, through Catalonian hills and Swiss ski towns and sleepy Provencal villages, is a 2,200-pound robot hitched to an SUV.
And though the robot is part of a new international marketing campaign by Nike, make no mistake: It's a Pittsburgh creation.
The Chalkbot is a mobile robot sponsored by Nike and cyclist Lance Armstrong's Livestrong Foundation, designed to print messages on the pavement in front of cyclists competing in the Tour de France. It is the creation of DeepLocal and Standard Robot, two Pittsburgh tech companies that are now transporting the Chalkbot throughout France.
"This project is about putting messages of hope out on the road and allowing cancer survivors to give inspiration to their family and friends," Standard Robot President Greg Baltus said Monday night. He was calling from a hotel room in a town outside of Limoges, about 100 miles from Bordeaux. "It's pretty exciting."
The concept is simple: the Chalkbot travels one day ahead of the Tour de France cyclists, printing messages in bright yellow water-soluble paint on the road at a pace of 5 miles per hour.
Anyone can send the Chalkbot messages (a maximum of 40 characters) via text message, Twitter or the Nike Web site. Operators sift through the submissions for message offering hope or encouragement, such as "Believe," "Do it for Mary in remission" and "It's about everyday heroes."
Most have been written by or about cancer survivors, but the Chalkbot has even been asked to print a few marriage proposals, DeepLocal CEO Nathan Martin said.
"These are all inspirational messages written by people who wouldn't otherwise be able to take part in the Tour de France," Mr. Martin said.
He said the Chalkbot creators also made sure to display Steel City pride: A plaque on the back of the robot reads, "Built by DeepLocal and Standard Robot in Pittsburgh, PA, USA."
Nike advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy approached DeepLocal seven weeks ago and asked if the company could build a machine that could print chalk messages on the streets of France as part of Livestrong's new "It's About You" campaign. The campaign is meant to increase awareness about cancer research and treatment, and it coincides with Lance Armstrong's return to competitive cycling after a 31/2-year hiatus.
"We wanted to tap into social media, and into this idea that people want to be engaged and want to be involved and see how they can effect change beyond the four walls of their house," Nike spokesman Derek Kent said. Nike is paying for the project but provided no cost figures.
DeepLocal built the message-writing software for the robot, and then subcontracted Standard Robot to construct the robot itself.
(Mr. Baltus had worked on a similar street-writing robot, the GraffitiWriter, in 1998 with the tech activist group, the Institute for Applied Autonomy. That group isn't too happy about the Chalkbot, which it said in a news release is "an anti-corporate project ... reappropriated as an advertising scheme.").
The Chalkbot actually consists of two separate machines: one prints text on the pavement using 48 spray guns, and the other takes a photograph of the message. The photo is e-mailed back to the person who submitted the message, along with the GPS location of the message and the time that it was printed.
The Chalkbot was driven from Pittsburgh to New York City on June 27. From there, it was shipped from New York to London, then put on the Chunnel to Paris and driven to Nice just in time for the second stage of the Tour de France on July 5.
Since the start of the trip, Equipe Chalkbot -- the unofficial name for the Pittsburgh team operating the Chalkbot -- has been blogging about the trip at http://francebot.tumblr.com.
They also have a Chalkbot Twitter, twitter.com/chalkbot, written from the point-of-view of the robot itself. ("The baguettes and cafe in Adast were really great. Or so says equipe chalkbot. I prefer synthethic motor oil to start my day," the Chalkbot Twittered on July 11.)
And the robot has received a shout-out from the biggest name in the race -- Lance Armstrong mentioned the Chalkbot twice on his Twitter the night after the third stage of the race.
"People are surprised because they don't know what it is at first, but then they get interested and it gets a lot of attention," Mr. Baltus said. "Once we do the printing on the ground, it's actually very emotional and engaging, and repeatedly people have walked down the entire stretch to read all the messages."
Obtaining permission to print the messages is a cumbersome process.
Staffers from Wieden+Kennedy sift through all the submitted messages to ensure that they do not contain profanity or advertising, and then a Tour de France representative reviews the approved messages on her BlackBerry before they can be printed.
Additionally, in order to paint the messages on the pavement, Equipe Chalkbot must get permission at every stop from both local Tour de France officials and the mayors of each city on the route. It is a process made more difficult by the fact that no one on the Chalkbot crew speaks French.
The primary concern of the French municipal authorities is ensuring the paint will easily wash away, Mr. Baltus said.
Sylvie Millot, a spokeswoman for the Haute-Marne Department of Tourism, said the Chalkbot operators contacted the organization several weeks ago to request permission to print on the road in that area. The Chalkbot was there yesterday.
"There was no problem for this action because the Chalkbot is respectful of the nature and environment," Ms. Millot said. The paint is made of environmentally friendly soy bean protein, and usually washes away after one rainfall.
The number of messages printed by the Chalkbot varies each day, depending on the number approved by the Tour de France, but in the last few days the Chalkbot has averaged between 400 and 500 messages per day -- about a kilometer of text on the pavement.
Still, that is only a fraction of the machine's capacity; the Chalkbot has the ability to write as much as 15 kilometers of text per day. Mr. Baltus hopes the approval process can become more streamlined in coming weeks so the Chalkbot can print more messages and log more miles.
Currently, there is a queue of 5,000 text messages and Twitters, waiting to be approved and printed. By the end of the race, Mr. Baltus hopes Equipe Chalkbot will be able to print all of the messages submitted by Livestrong supporters around the world.
"After you do a run, you look down the road and as far as you can see are messages of hope and survival," Mr. Baltus said. "The messages as a whole represent something pretty incredible."
First Published July 17, 2009 12:00 am
