Put your pedal to the metal!

So I don’t know about you, but this here robot is actually a bit of a petrol head. While I’ll quite happily watch a game of football, cricket, or at a push, rugby, I’m not massively into ball sports. This is mainly because I’m not very good at them. What I am good at, however, is motorsport.

I’ve always loved cars, and in particular cars going very fast and/or being pushed to the edge of control. So, last weekend was pure heaven for me with the Le Mans 24 hour endurance race on Sat/Sun followed by a rain-soaked, yet thrilling Canadian Grand Prix from Montreal. Luckily Mrs Design Robot shares my passion so I was allowed to watch them whole thing without a soap opera or celebrity gossip program in sight. Amazing!

The reason for this post is to highlight an amazing series of adverts created by Audi to raise awareness for their exploits in motor racing.

Audi are a front running team in the Le Mans endurance race and with the help of one of their top drivers, Alan McNish, sought to explain just how much physical and mental strength and skill is required to race in the highest levels of motor sport. The advert below shows in great detail, and also in great design style, the day in the life of an Audi driver. Audi advertising is always amazing! Enjoy:

The Le Mans 24 Hour 2011 race proved to be an action packed and exciting event right to the very end. With just 30 minutes to go, the gap between the two front-runners was just 8 seconds. 8 SECONDS after racing for 23 hours and 30 minutes! Incredible!

Unfortunately two of the three Audi cars suffered from massive crashes throughout the race including Alan McNish after the first hour. Luckily Alan walked away and was not hurt following the horrific accident. The bad luck came good in the end though, as the remaining Audi went on to win.

Photo credit: uk.autoblog.com

Here’s a great animated ad from Pot Noodle which is an amusing take on the usual sugar-coated Christmas ads. The noodle van is coming… noodle van is coming…

Credits go to:
Agency: AKQA
Creative director: James Hilton
Production company: A Large Evil Corporation
Director: Seth Watkins
Lead animator: Eva Bennett
Lead modelmaker: Ahmed Hussein

Nokia E71 – Universal Everything – 6 billion people, 6 billion colours from Sermad on Vimeo.

Nokia E71 – Universal Everything

Here’s a video (another old one I’m afraid) which gives an interesting take on social connections and building communities. Gives human characteristics to abstract shapes and spheres, Matt Pyke’s file shows the shapes interacting with each other – colliding, attracting, forming groups and populating the landscape.

‘The more connections I make, the further I can reach across the world finding inspiration in every person I meet.’ Matt Pyke

Find out more about Matt Pyke over at Computer Arts…

Ok, so I know this is a really old advert, but I just stumbled across it again and remembered how amazing it was to watch the first time – especially in the cinema! It really is a beautifully shot piece of film and the visual works perfectly with Jose Gonzalez’s cover of The Knife’s original electro track, “Heartbeats”. The LCD TV at the end looks a bit dated though!