Air Giants make super cool giant robots!
We apply soft robotic design principles at a super-scale, creating a new market for entertainment robotics and transforming large scale interactive entertainment. We are vastly expanding the use of robotics in cultural and creative industries, with robots able to respond to and engage with both crowds and individuals, both indoors and outdoors.
We sit at the intersection of art and creative technology, drawing on the rich history of performing arts such as puppetry to deliver exciting encounters with robots which have lasting impact.
We are working with choreographers and dance companies, outdoor events companies, light festivals and arts centres, and robotics academics to create new works which hybridise our work with more conventional cultural forms.
This could transform the way robotics are used in all sorts of cultural and creative spaces, creating new opportunities for close-up robotic interactions in entertainment settings ranging from theatres to theme parks and science centers. Existing contacts who have approached us about these robots include: Centre for Life in Newcastle, We The Curious in Bristol, The Royal Shakespeare Company and numerous UK arts centres.
We cover a range of scales, from tabletop-size to 8m towering creations. They are soft, gentle and interactive biomorphic robots which are economical in their use of materials, being made of little more than air, fabric and control valves.
This is a patent pending, first-to-market soft robotics technology. Nothing like this exists in the marketplace in terms of cost, ease of installation, interaction affordance, and customisation.We are developing off-the-shelf products as well as taking on bespoke commissions.
Our work is a response to the problems of conventional animatronics, which are expensive and too fragile and dangerous for close audience interaction. Our soft robots are cheap to make, durable, and are inherently safe for audiences to interact with.
This opens the possibility of using robotics in applications where cost would previously have been prohibitive. Current state-of-the-art for an off-the-shelf robot is (eg) Robothespian, which is around £50k, as compared to £10k for our off-the-shelf robots.
The UK is a creative cultural leader. Our state-of-the-art robotics and its novelty in the market can add value to existing attractions and UK-held IP. We want to use our existing relationships and the ones developed though CreaTech Ones to Watch to internationalise, taking the best of UK innovation around the world.
We are in talks with Universal Creative about collaborative R+D in 2022-23. We are collaborative by nature, and are actively looking for other international collaboration opportunities.
The global entertainment robots market is expected to reach approximately USD 3,715.29 million by 2023, exhibiting a CAGR of 23.06% between 2018 and 2023 (Global Entertainment Robots Market Research Report 21-23).
We have attracted very positive interest both nationally and internationally. We have secured funding to develop a large touring installation from outdoor arts producers Without Walls, and are presenting a new interactive artwork with funding from Warwick Arts Centre in October of this year.
The company was founded on the back of a successful prototype project funded by Research England through the South West Creative Technology Network. This drew on inflatable geometry and robotic control research undertaken by the directors for several years previously.
The future potential is enormous; with the right support our patent-pending technology could find a home in theme parks, science centres, sports events and performances across the world. We would be proud and excited to deliver world-first new attractions to both domestic and international audiences.
Our existing network (including the Pervasive Media Studio in Bristol, Kaleider in Exeter, The Exploratorium in San Francisco, Universal in Colorado and The Victoria and Albert Museum) includes prospective customers providing direct routes to market.
When we recruit PAYE employees we will be supporting our local economy by hiring and training locally. The company will be providing jobs and generating tax in one of the most deprived wards in the South West (Lawrence Hill, Bristol).
Being CIC CreaTech One to Watch 2021 would benefit the company enormously. We would love the opportunity to get our product in front of the selection panel, and to have the chance to share our enthusiasm for robotic innovation with investors and market leaders in both the creative and tech sectors. Being selected would be a powerful endorsement of the scale and scope of our ideas and we would certainly benefit from the business support package.
