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Holiday Spirit Measurer

  • Challenge

    Durham, NC, has a reputation, and it's not necessarily the nicest one. Ponysaurus Brewing Co wanted its loyal taproom patrons to see the nice side of Durham, particularly during the holiday season.

  • Solution

    Viget partnered with Baldwin&, Ponysaurus's brand agency, to build a Holiday Spirit Measurer that measures the sentiment of tweets from the local area, and rewards tap room visitors with samples of a special holiday brew once the tweets reach peak niceness.

  • Results

    Our physical taproom hardware installation displayed the usernames of over 1.1 million tweets and increased the "cheer factor" of the city by 38%. And let's not forget the many kegs of holiday beer enjoyed by local tap room patrons.

Even the Grinch likes beer. That was our thought when building a never-been-done-before hardware contraption that measured the collective feelings of Durham, NC. Partnering with Baldwin&, we took on the task of improving the local Twitter sentiment by providing free beer to citizens when the city reached peak niceness. You could certainly say it led to some happy holidays.

Design

Real Materials for the Real Deal

We worked within real-world constraints without sacrificing vision. We designed the machine around a solid brass steam gauge and complemented it with wooden elements of stained oak.

Development

Making Machines Feel Feelings

We built an algorithm that taps into Sentiment140, an API that can help measure sentiment of Twitter. We classified tweets as positive, negative, and neutral and computed the real-time sentiment to display on our custom engineered gauge.

3D Printing and Modeling

Digital to Physical

We’re handy with CAD and used our 3D printer to quickly make custom parts for prototyping and production. Mounts, spacers, and mechanical linkages were printed with ABS plastic.

Building Ponysaurus’s beer pouring, bell ringing, Twitter analyzing, holiday robot.
Justin Sinichko, Hardware Developer

Construction

Classic Craftsmanship

We printed templates to cut finished lumber and used a jigsaw to quickly tackle complex curves. Brass inlays were custom designed and fit into place.
38%

Increase in the "cheer factor" of Durham, NC.

Summary

Our physical taproom hardware installation measured the collective feelings of Durham, NC through local tweets. It ended up measuring over 1.1 million tweets. The one-of-a-kind measurer thingy motivated the local Twitter sentiment to improve by providing free beer to citizens when the city reached peak niceness. “Cheer factor” went up 38% in Durham, while free beer consumption was up 100%.