Redbull Creation

Redbull Creation

Creation is a 72 hour build competition. In 2018 they decided to change the format from teams with existing relationships, to randomly assigned teams of strangers.

I was somewhat trepidatious going in to the competition; i didn’t want to be out of my league, but i was simultaneously didn’t want to be the only one on the team doing any work (as has too often been the case), but signed up anyway.

During the meet and greet, where teams were assigned, i was thankful that my team seemed to have varied skill areas, and were all pretty stoked to be there, and had enthusiam for working out a good project. Our team was

Hannah, a generalist fabricator, but with most skills in large welded steel structures.

Adrian, a blacksmith with the Crucible.

Ankeet, a coder and computer specialist.

…and Myself, a generalist with an overlap into most of the areas each of these folks have deeper skills in.

https://makezine.com/2018/07/03/red-bull-creation-returns-high-five-machine-9-crazy-contraptions/

The Idea

The project was an Inter-dimensional Research Portal. A participant would approach the door, knock and be greeted by a booming, somewhat alien voice through the letter box. They’d be told that Collated Paper Services (https://www.collatedpaperservices.com/research on your earth internet) had failed in their earlier attempts at categorizing human love, and needed more data. They’d be prompted to fill out a form on the table to the left, and slip it thought the letter slot. Once they’d dropped their form through the slot, they’d be given a receipt via the printer mounted on the front of the door. But oh no! the intergalactic tubes had become crossed, and they didn’t receive a copy of their own submission, but someone else’s instead.

Teamwork

Our team gelled pretty well from the outset, and we met a couple times in the week and a half prior to the start of the 72 hour build to discuss ideas. We started board, and got more and more specific at each meeting. Though we had the rough idea down when the clock started counting down, we didn’t have any of the implementation planned out.

The role i fell into in this collaboration was not at all the role i’m used to playing. I was mostly a coordinator, scope-checker, translator, and gap filler. I ended up being something of a project manager, and that’s absolutely not the role i was expecting to play.There were three main areas of work to be done, and a specialist for each of those areas. It was actually pretty uncomfortable, because there were long stretches of time where there really wasn’t enough for me to be doing, and i felt guilty about that. However, the project absolutely would not have succeeded without me, or any of the other team-mates.

Ankeet was the natural choice for the software side, but he had very little electronics background, so i covered the electrical hardware, and helped him get to grips with interfacing with the raspberry pi’s GPIO, talking out the program flow, and troubleshooting.

Hannah was responsible for the door, and it’s ability to safely free stand. I helped talk her down from building a custom doorframe for the project, and let her focus on the more critical support structure. She was also responsible for the main story, custom stationary, voice recording, and website. We all helped with this, but she was the main creative force.

Adrian had such a specific but narrow skill set (blacksmithing) that he needed to be doing something in that realm. Since the competition’s shop didn’t have any of the things he needed to do his work, he did most of the work off-site at the crucible. He made a custom knocker and knock-plate, letterbox, and table legs. I modified and installed them, cut a matching hole in the door for the letter slot, reinforced the table bottom to support the narrow flanges on the legs.

I also fine tuned the knock detection, letter detection, and audio system.

With less time pressure, i think perhaps i’d have been happier in this role, but that’s the nature of the format.

Award

We ended up winning the Team’s prize, voted for by participants from other teams.