Dear Yahoo!, can I please have one of your kick ass bikes? kthxbai.
As part of a new viral advertising campaign called “Start Wearing Purple“, Yahoo! has created some GPS-enabled bikes. The project is called “Purple Pedals“. In about 7 weeks a team hacked together a bike that would take a picture every minute, geocode it, upload that photo to Flickr and then plot it on a map. A diverse team in NYC partnered together for the project.
They did a great job of documenting the process and the behind-the-scenes videos are really engaging. I think that the production quality and the narrative are what really brings the videos together.
From what I could catch watching the video, here’s the components:
- Elektra Townie 8 cruiser bike
- Nokia N95 mobile phone for camera & GPS
- Custom python scripts loaded onto the device
- External battery pack for phone
- 3 solar panels to charge the battery
- A/C power cord to charge battery (backup)
- Accelerometer to detect when the bike’s in motion
- Secure, waterproof enclosures for all hardware
- Flickr for recieving, hosting and mapping photos
Oh, and check out this awesome beagle! He’s hanging around the industrial designer’s studio. Make me wish it was easier to bring Rusty into the office.
