Pre-Ramble:  Well, our good buddies at Red Bull (the high-energy folks who brought us the Flugtag event in back in July 2010) have pulled off another big innovation fest — the Red Bull Creation USA 2011 competition.

The annual event, a “build-a-thon” held in a scrapyard in Brooklyn, NY, challenges the resourcefulness of inventors and screwballs of all types to demonstrate their skills in a themed, time-limited contest.

This year the theme was “Energy in motion” and the timeframe was a quick 72 hours.  The challenge was to “create a device that could carry the weight of a human being without using fossil fuels.” Sponsors provided tools and equipment (saws, nuts, bolts, blow-torches, etc.) and teams could bring no more than 200 pounds of additional parts and supplies. Participants were encouraged to push the edges of their inventive capabilities as entries were judged on “technicality, functionality, demonstration and awesomeness.”

Twin Cities team, Dillon Hodapp, David Heisserer, Nathan Knutson, and Cory Huseby, calling themselves  ”1.21 Jigawatts,” were selected to compete against 15 other teams to create something that would “wow a crowd of spectators and a panel of judges at the Creation event.”

The team did just that, presenting the “Human-Powered Hamster Wheel with a Text Message Spray Paint Printer,” a curious 8-foot-tall contraption (shown above) made out of plywood, paint cans and a cell phone.  The device was propelled forward under human power and “spit out a text message as it roll[ed] by.”

“The giant wheel was connected to a wireless network using an open source-based microcomputer; a cellular module; and a phone SIM card, which assigned the system its own phone number. Audience members were asked to send text messages to the system, which pulled a small trailer holding a “printer” with a row of seven paint cans. The text messages sent a signal to the printer, which in turn fired the proper paint cans to spell out the words from the text message … [long strips of brown paper were] wrapped around the hamster wheel so that the printed messages could be torn off and taken home by audience members as souvenirs.”

And the winner is …  you guessed it, 1.21 Jigawatts took the $5,000 grand prize for their awesome and “technically impressive” solution (the only thing missing was cedar chips).  Crediting their strategy to play on individual group member strengths, the team knew it would have to “go big” …

“We knew we were going to have to show this in a big venue … We had the inspiration to make it big … make it beautiful, … make it a spectacle!”

The Take-Away:  For those of you who are keeping score at home, this victory comes on the heels of another spectacular coup — the world-record-breaking performance in the 2010 Flugtag event, also set by a Twin Cities-based team.  Venture capitalists take note – Minneapolis/Saint Paul is a hot bed for innovation (and lunacy) … !

Pre-Ramble: For the uninitiatied, the word Flugtag is pronounced “flew’- tog” … rhymes with “blue’-fog” and it means something like ”Flight Day” in German. 

I consider myself an expert, now that I have attended the goofy event which was recently held in a big Saint Paul park on the banks of the Mighty Mississippi River. Once you’ve shared the Flugtag experience with 90,000 people, you can’t help but be a fan.

Basically, the Red Bull Flugtag features a bunch of teams of five folks who design and  fabricate largely aerodynamically challenged human propelled contraptions that are launched off a 30 ft. tall platform into a body of water below. The Flugtag events are as much about creativity and showmanship as they are about actual flight. (In some years, the winning teams put down some pretty pathetic distances.)

According to wikipedia, Flugtag was invented by Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz, “… although the format was originally invented in a small English seaside town under the name “Birdman Rally.” The first Red Bull Flugtag was held in 1991 in Vienna, Austria. It was such a hit, that it has been held every year since in over 35 countries across the world.

Flugtag 101 – Anyone is eligible to compete in the Flugtag event, although I’m guessing that there is a mutant genetic component found in the DNA of individuals who would actually sign up. To participate, each team must submit an application and their contraption must meet the criteria set by Red Bull. For example, each flying machine (again, the term “flying” is used loosely) must:

• have a wing-span of no more than 30 feet
• have a maximum weight of 450 lbs. … including the pilot
• be powered by muscle, gravity and/or imagination
• be unsinkable (Wasn’t the Titanic billed as unsinkable?)
• be constructed entirely of environmentally friendly materials
• have no loose parts (… it is unclear how rules officials can control for the flotsam and jetsam created by entries that break into smithereenes upon impact)
• have no greater than one square foot of advertising
• be accompanied by some kind of clever/lame skit and choreography to cool amped up music

Team members must wear a helmet, life preserver, mouth guard, goggles and are probably asked to sign a big fat Flugtag waiver. Entries are scored by a random panel of judges in three categories – distance, creativity and showmanship.

The Take-Away:  Are you ready for this?!! … The record for the longest Flugtag flight is 207 feet, set on July 24th, 2010 IN SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA by the team “Major Trouble and The Dirty Dixies” (record-breaking contraption shown above) in front of more than 90,000 people, which also set a record for the biggest attendance at a Flugtag event in any U.S. city!!!  To see the record-breaking flight, click on the Red Bull Flugtag link here.