Swag Design Contest!

So in case you didn’t know, we’re building Stompy, a 4,000 pound, propane-powered, 6-legged hydraulic walking robot that seats two. We’re about to put out a call to fundraise for the final robot via Kickstarter, and we want to have really awesome stuff to give away. If this doesn’t call for some cool logos, T-shirts and bumper stickers, we don’t know what does.

We, unfortunately, are all engineers, and those particular kinds of design skills have atrophied over the years, if they ever existed.

Thus, we introduce the Project Hexapod Swag Design Contest!

We would like designs for the following:

1. A bumper sticker. This is the reward for the first Kickstarter level, where you declare your undying love for giant robots by vandalizing nearby surfaces with adhesive-backed paper.

2. A supporter T-shirt. This is the shirt you get at one of the low-to-medium Kickstarter levels that screams “A bunch of nutjobs up in Boston have built a giant, life-endangering walking robot, and it’s so amazingly cool I bought this shirt to support them.”

3. A team T-shirt. This is the shirt that the 19 robot builders get to wear to fairs, job interviews, first dates, etc. It has to say “I build giant, life-endangering robots for fun, and if you have to ask why you wouldn’t understand the answer.” We’re looking for a comical front design here; the back would be designed later to include sponsor logos, team member names, and other shout-outs.

For those designs, we are putting up the following prizes:

1. A $100 prize for winning a category (up to $300 for winning all 3)

2. A free ride on the finished Stompy robot

3. If you win all 3 categories, free driver training on the Stompy robot instead of a ride

Both T-shirts are restricted to 4 colors or less so that they can be silkscreened cheaply; the bumper sticker will be digitally printed, and can be whatever colors you want. The supporter T-shirt will be one-sided – you choose whether it’s the front or back. Entrants (except for the bumper sticker) must be capable of producing color-separated files that could be sent to a screenprinter. Upon submitting a design to the contest, you grant Project Hexapod a non-exclusive license to it for the indefinite future.

We would like the swag to be comically self-aware of how large, dangerous, and awesome this project is, all wrapped up into one design. Significant bonus points will be awarded for catchy slogans, cartoonish depictions, and humor. Ideally, a conceptual Stompy would be pictured in part or in whole, in a way that we could make into a logo.

Enter the contest by emailing rideablehexapod@gmail.com with the subject line “Swag Design Contest -” followed by “Bumper Sticker”, “Supporter T-Shirt”, or “Team T-Shirt”. Attach your image files to the message, along with any description you think is necessary. In your email, indicate if you are willing to modify the design given feedback or not. Enter as many different designs (in separate emails) as you’d like!

All entries must be received by noon on Friday, July 20th. Entries will be voted on by the Project Hexapod team, and winners will be notified by the following Wednesday.

Here’s some art from our most recent development to spur some creativity:

Published by

Gui

Gui Cavalcanti received a General Engineering degree with a Robotics concentration from the Olin College of Engineering. He worked as a robotics engineer and systems integrator at Boston Dynamics, working on cutting edge mechanical design and systems integration for highly dynamic legged robots like BigDog, AlphaDog, and PETMAN. He was the Systems Integrator for the LS3 project, coordinating the joint engineering and development of multiple subcontractors and engineers. Over the course of his career he has also developed the mechanical systems for a robotic tuna, several robotic snakes, an ornithopter, and several other robotic animals. In his spare time he builds ridiculous things with ridiculous people, like a flotilla of SUV-sized rubber duck boats to take on the water on the 4th of July.

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