Nike / Livestrong’s Chalkbot is a giant printer for the Tour De France Roads
I didn’t know this, but apparently there’s a tradition of Tour De France fans chalking personal messages of encouragement along the roads of the race’s stages. This idea forms the basis for Nike and Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong foundation’s Chalkbot, a sort of giant trailable printer which applies chalk messages to the Tour’s roads.
The upshot of this is that fans around the world can apply messages of encouragement to the race’s road surface by texting, tweeting @chalkbot or using the form on the project’s site (I suggest tweeting as for some reason they’ve decided it’s a good idea to ask people to register before they leave a message on the site).
The idea is complex in execution but simple in concept (build a printer that can take messages from the web and print them on the road) and it’s a really nice way to get an online audience to engage with the Tour. The link to Armstrong’s cancer charity is a little tenuous but I guess if it gets the name about then it can’t do any harm.
Nike x LIVESTRONG - What is a Chalkbot (English Version) (via freshnessmag)
