The app made competitor engagement a breeze, with AR assisted interactive guides to creating paper planes, AR assisted measurements and an AR game

THE BRIEF

Red Bull’s Paper Wings competition, the 2019 edition, was supported by an interactive, Augmented Reality and all round awesome website and app, created by your friendly neighbourhood digital producers (that's us if you were wondering).

Both of these were global networking hubs for 40k participants worldwide, plus all of their fans, where everyone could engage and follow the action of the entire event. We’ve also incorporated an event management system for Red Bull organisers, to help with the Qualifiers and the Global Finals.

OUR APPROACH

The app made competitor engagement a breeze, with AR assisted interactive guides to creating paper planes, AR assisted measurements and an AR game. And to round it all out, we’ve incorporated some of the functionality from the website including Leaderboards, Team Room and Event Management functions. 

Because we knew that this competition would be a hit, we’ve made future competitions easier to manage by building the website on a standardised platform, so it can be reused in a more cost effective way.

how we did it

The App had 4 main sections - Latest, Hangar, Achievements and Team Room.

In the Latest section, participants could keep on top of the action with a Find your Nearest Event functionality, an overview of the Leaderboards with all of the latest results and News Feed with articles drawn from the main website.

The Hangar section helped competitors keep on top of their game with multiple AR functionalities - Fold, Runway and Aerobatics. From showing users the best ways to fold their planes, letting them take the planes on test runs and giving them tips on how to record the coolest video for the Aerobatics competition - this section had it all.

All of the Achievements were documented in this next section, presented as challenges - 12 in total - and the more users completed, the higher their ranking. Challenges included folding planes, testing them out in the Runway and completing the levels in the Flight Academy game. Naturally, each brand new, shiny badge that was earned could be shared on Social Media.

Only Finalists had access to the final section, the Team Room, where they could be informed by the organizers on the event activities and timetables, access an interactive map with key locations of the event (after party spot not to be overlooked), and key contact info.

The website was the main point of information, supported by the App. It was the main point of information on the competition, how to take part, the rules and regulations, sign up/register with a UIM account - all the boring stuff, but also, all the fun stuff as well! Same as the app, the users could find info on the paper planes, search for nearest events, access the Leaderboards, Newsfeeds and all of the awesome videos from the Aerobatics competition - and vote for their favourite one! Also like the app, Finalists had access to the Finalists Room.

The website had the added functionality for Red Bull staff to edit contents, create Qualifier events, approve, register and check in participants at competitions, record their scores and grant access to the Finalists Room.

THE EVENT

Qualifiers

University students unite! Because only you could apply to participate in this competition. Qualifying events were held at universities all over the world and had two categories: Airtime and Distance. 

All participants had to create their own Paper Planes, out of A4 paper, which could only be folded (no cheating with added tech - we’re looking at you engineering students). Red Bull allowed two throws in each category and, if you so pleased, you could use different planes each time.

National Finals

In the same process as the Qualifiers, some countries could decide to run National Finals with the top two participants from each of the Qualifiers, determining who would go through.

Global Finals

Congrats to all finalists! There was ONE finalist for each country for both Airtime and Distance who were invited to attend the Global Finals in Salzburg Austria! Exactly like the Qualifiers before, the contestants were entered into their relevant categories and had to fold their planes at the event - no lucky pre-folded paper planes allowed. 

The first round tested all of the participants and the second round bid the top 10 of each category against each other, whereafter the top paper plane thrower was crowned the winner!

Aerobatics

If you’re a designer, innovator or aviator (not a university student) and would really like a chance to take part in this competition, you’re in luck. The Aerobatics element if the competition was created for just that purpose and all you had to do was sign up for a UIM account online and share your Instagram handle. 

Also, to show off your skills, you had to create a (or a couple of) 1 minute, single take, non edited clip showcasing your paper plane throws. Not forgetting, of course, that you’re on Social Media and everything is about tagging, so #redbullpaperwings, @redbull and your location had to be present in the post. 

These videos would be automatically uploaded onto the website, where participants could view and vote.

Finalists in each country were able to attend the Finals in Salzburg as well, where they were judged on the construction of the paper plane, creativity (art and design) and it’s flight performance.

Check out these amazing participants!

red bull doodle art

red bull futur i/o