Description:

Spark had the opportunity to demonstrate to New Zealanders how 5G could make a difference to how Team New Zealand defended the 36th America’s Cup. They started by building the team their own 5G network to give them a technological advantage and excel their boat’s performance to victory.

Making a tangible difference to New Zealand’s defence of The America’s Cup by deploying 5G on the Waitemata to stream thousands of real-time data points from their test boat straight to the design team, securing the most precious commodity in The America’s Cup – time.

The challenge was making that accessible and understandable to the public.

The solution? The Spark 5G Race Zone - an immersive high-tech experience with seven zones, each bringing aspects of the team’s preparation to life. This was a first-of-its-kind 5G consumer showcase, a free experience that gave the public hands-on access to discover the benefits of 5G for themselves.

Working closely with Dan Bernasconi, and the Emirates Team New Zealand design team, we created a real-time interactive experience where visitors can design their own high-performance AC75.

Using a tablet, visitors can change the hull, rudder, sail, foil, crew position plus personalise it with their own custom paint job to create the best boat for the day's wind conditions.

At the end of the process, they could then see whether their design helped or hindered their AC75’s performance while everyone's final designed boat was presented throughout the day on the shared big screen. The performance was based on Emirates Team New Zealand's design concepts & changes to each part of the AC75 affected the performance in some way.

Overall the system contained hundreds of thousands of potential boat design combinations.

The configurator was set up to highlight Spark’s 5G network capabilities & each tablet accessed its own cloud computer, streaming high-quality ray-traced graphics.

High-end gaming graphics on a mobile device is not possible due to the large amount of computing power required so we needed to work closely with Spark to find a balance between visual fidelity and bandwidth of the network.

The result is a streaming experience showcasing Spark’s 5G network in a fun & engaging way.

Children especially enjoyed the experience as there was a real sense of ownership and pride upon seeing their personalised boat sailing in the harbour.

At the end of the experience, each design was uploaded to a microsite where visitors can socially share their design.

Presenting sailing technology in ‘plain speak’ to a five-year-old, speaks to the success of this experience.

The ability for a child to enjoyably work through the experience is a testament to achieving Spark’s vision.

All up more than 25,000 boats were designed & configured within 3 months of the Spark Race Zone opening.

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