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Winners of F1 crowdsourcing competition set for behind the scenes Monaco GP experience

The two winners, announced today of the first Challenge in the F1 Connectivity Innovation Prize, will be jetting off to the Monaco Grand Prix next ...

Motorsport Blog

Motorsport Blog

The two winners, announced today of the first Challenge in the F1 Connectivity Innovation Prize, will be jetting off to the Monaco Grand Prix next season and will also qualify for the shortlist of 6 winners leading up to the Grand Prize of US $50,000.

The F1 Connectivity Innovation Prize is a crowdsourcing initiative organised jointly by Tata Communications, Formula One Management and MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS Formula One Team, offering fans and the public the chance to engage behind the scenes and find solutions to real world problems in the sport.

There are three Challenges and Challenge 1 centred around the F1 Data Screen.

Entrants were asked to demonstrate new and insightful information that can be derived from Formula One Management’s live data feeds – including the timing pages – and to propose how this new information could be visually packaged in order to add suspense and excitement to the audience experience.

The judging panel - comprising FOM’s Chief Technical Officer, John Morrison, Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes Executive Director (Technical), Paddy Lowe; Tata Communications’ Managing Director of F1 Business, Mehul Kapadia and F1 commentator Martin Brundle - were faced with a large entry from teams and individuals around the world.

FOM

The winning entries were:

Individual entrant Chris Thelwell, UK

Chris’ solution to the Challenge was to make real-time data accessible to all by creating a new open-source data humanisation service that brings the data to life.

The solution proposes taking an XML feed from the F1 data set and comparing it to historical data to generate a human story angle from the findings. It does this by identifying significant events using logic statements, creating a new text based story from a set of event templates and translating them into multiple languages. It then attaches meta data to each story and ranks them using a set of pre-set metrics, before delivering a feed via a RESTful API. Services then collect the API and disseminate the story via their own channels.

One particularly interesting element of this solution was the ability of the system to feed into not only mobile devices for fans, but wearable technology for track-side technical and engineering staff and audible screen reading technology used by blind and partially sighted fans.

Darren Heath

Team Winner 2: Ben Lambert, Will Horner-Glister, Mike Albers & Fabian Birgfeld

UK

The team, headed by Ben, suggested segmenting consumption of the F1 data set by user group, defining these as ‘The Team’, ‘The Enthusiasts’ and ‘The Fans’.

The Team, i.e. engineers/team personnel, officials and technical suppliers at the race track would essentially receive the same data feed however it would be enhanced for readability and user-control. Ben’s team suggested doing this by using the typeface adopted by Boeing EICAS displays, which has passed numerous studies into legibility in high stress situations. They also suggested timeline-based graphics that can be extrapolated, such as mean or historic sector time, to add context and create relevance. The feed would be delivered over an API and web-based technology to give engineers a simple but effective control of the display.

For The Enthusiasts, i.e. hardcore fans who consume every single session via multi-screening to extract as much information as possible, Ben’s team proposed the invention of a new timing device in the form of a circular graphic. This would form part of an overhaul of the data representation, brought to life in a fully-interactive and responsive digital ecosystem that is personalised based on the team-support won by The Enthusiast and their individual consumption needs.

The Fans are those that watch Qualifying on a Saturday, the race on a Sunday and take an active interest in what’s happening on track with marginal requirement to consume data. Ben’s team proposed a simplified version of the digital ecosystem that overlays key data streams onto technology that incorporates view-selection for the camera feed and operates on mobile devices and connected televisions. They highlighted this with some beautifully clean and simple visuals.

Mehul Kapadia, Managing Director of F1 Business at Tata Communications said: “We are incredibly pleased with the wide ranging responses from across the globe and so impressed with the quality of the entries we received for this first challenge, which gave creative minds an opportunity to apply their passion and imagination in the quest to bring innovation and bold thinking to Formula One Management’s data screen challenge. Judging was a challenge in itself, but ultimately, both the winning entries stood out for the way they pushed the boundaries of technology and design innovation in this fast-paced sport.

“Congratulations to Chris and Ben, Will, Mike and Fabian and a tremendous thank you to all the F1 fans who took the time to submit an entry. We look forward to the next two challenges, with the second one going live on 3 September.”

Don’t forget that you still have chance of winning the Grand Prize AND a trip to the 2015 Monaco Grand Prix, by entering Challenge 2 (launches 3rd September 2014) or Challenge 3 (29th October 2014)

Keep an eye on the Official Website for updates as well as @tata_comm or #tatacommsf1prize.

Register here for updates on the upcoming challenges F1 Connectivity Innovation Prize

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