By William Campbell, Simone Steel and Sammy Haywood
We have a simple question.
The Hop, Skip and a Jump team are driving 14,000 kilometres as part of the Mongol Rally through 16 countries in search of an answer to this question.
If you’re unfamiliar with the rally, it’s run by a mob called The Adventurists and is essentially a journey from Goodwood (UK) to Ulan Ude (RUS) via Mongolia with no set route to get from point A to point B and has three major rules –
1. You must pick a woefully inadequate vehicle (must have an engine size of less than 1(ish) litres)
2. There have no formal backup crew or support. You are totally on your own
3. Your team must raise at least £1000 for charity
None of the team speak any languages other than English that will help along the way. Collectively the team can’t read the Cyrillic alphabet, or any Chinese, Arabic or Greek characters. However, what we can do is design and make stuff as a novel way to start conversations. We are going to track down the ways things are made by individuals and small groups along our route to start a dialogue. We think this is important – in an age where the way things are made can have dire social and environmental consequences we’re searching for an alternative narrative – one which is nimble, improvisational and responsive to the place in which it happens.
Crossing the border of 16 countries requires an agile approach to planning and re-planning on the fly.
Small Hatch? Scooter? …Segway?
So basically we’re going to do the Mongol Rally – which we’ve heard is challenging – to add to this, we’re going to be making things the whole way along. Improvements/fixes for the car, goods to barter or trade, gifts and conversation starters, We think this is important because the way things are made has implications for the world at large and all the lovely folks on it. Hence the question – “Is there a universal language to making things?”. That’s why we are partnering up with YOU to help make all of these great things happen. In return for helping the cause you’ll be handsomely thanked with a diverse range of amazing rewards that we have lined up down below.
JOIN THE JOURNEY –
AND ONCE MORE – WHAT YOU REALLY CARE ABOUT – THE REWARDS …. DRUM ROLL PLEASE :D
THE PARTICIPATION AWARD: A super awesome, limited edition, custom, personalised thank you e-mail, and a dedication on our website.
THE TINY STEED: A tiny 3D printed car of awesome, limited edition thank you email, name on the site.
SPEW BAG CHALLENGE: You choose a pun, or the HS&J team can nominate one for you. This pun will be lovingly applied to a spew bag in art form during one of our flights to or from the rally. You’ll also get a video shout out during one of our video logs, a personalised thank you email and a dedication on our website.
THE BACKSEAT DRIVER AWARD: Your face, life size, printed out and stuck to a cardboard cutout that rides with us for one day of the trip. You’ll get a video shout out for that day, a team t-shirt, a personalised thank you email and a dedication on our website.
GIFTORIUM OF THE SILK ROAD: You’ll get one gift from each of the countries we visit on the trip, along with a dedicated vlog explaining the story behind each gift. You’ll also get a personalised thank you email, and a dedication on our website.
THE ‘WE MADE THIS’ AWARD (AKA LUCKY DIP OF ADVENTURE AWESOME): You’ll get one of the things we make on the road – it could be anything, an improvised tent, a toy, art… You also get a decal on the exterior of the vehicle (size?), a bigger 3D printed car of awesome, a team t-shirt, a personalised thank you email AND postcard, as well as a dedication on our website.
THE GOLDEN BOBBLEHEAD: The big one. You will be our copilot for the whole trip as we stick your face to a bobble head that sits on the dash – you’ll feature heavily in our videos. You also get naming rights for the car (in decal form), one of the number plates once we’re finished, a large exterior decal on the car, a “Giftorium of ze Silk Road” reward, a bigger, one off modified 3D printed car of awesome, a team t-shirt, a personalised thank you email and postcard as well as a photo dedication on our site.
Purchase of Car + Modifications: $3500
Petrol for Journey: $3000
Visas (partial): $980
Pozible Fee: $396 approx
Total: $7876
If we are fabulously successful and surpass our funding goal half of the extra funds will go straight to our charity partners, with the other half helping with;
Accommodation: $3000
Vehicle Insurance: $200
Flights from Ulan Ude back to London: $1500
Camera Drone: $800
Audio Recorder: $200
The list could go on…
You might wonder why we’re doing things this way – only funding our charity partners once we’ve reached our goal. The answer is that under Pozible’s guidelines, we can only raise money for one ‘thing’, that is either our project, or one of our charity partners. Once we’ve hit our goal that rule no longer applies. Never fear though! We are raising cash for our charity partners in other ways. Sign up to our newsletter and check out our website for more.
The Hop, Skip & A Jump team is the partnership of three diversely experienced industrial designers, who have collectively over 15 years of experience in creative fields. They have worked with a diverse range of organisations including Urban Art Projects, Buro North and RMIT University, as well as pre-eminent creative thinkers including Theo Jansen, Dylan Martorell & Leyla Acaroglu.
They have had worked featured in Launchpad, Design Quarterly & The Shanghai World Expo.
Progress Studio: www.progress.com
Haywoo.de: www.haywoo.de
PROGRESS STUDIO: THE SCALE OF THINGS: MOBI DES
HAYWOO.DE: CAFFIEND DAY,2012
TRAVEL EXPERIENCE –
The team are already well versed in living out of a suitcase, having already experienced 20+ countries in 6 out of 7 continents including Peru, France, Nepal, Sth Africa, Japan, U.S.A and vast stretches of the Australian Landscape.
JOIN THE JOURNEY
There is a very real risk that we will not make it to our intended destination with our vehicle in one piece (or even three for that matter), the car could break down and not be able to be repaired, a border crossing might not work out or we could crash, end up ill or otherwise unable to continue.
We gon’ deal with all dat.
This is an inherent risk of taking part in the an event of this nature, where possible proper planning will be undertaken to ensure the best possible outcome. All relevant visas will be obtained before beginning the rally & a full mechanical inspection of the car will be administered.
PROJECT PLAN –
I’m sure you know friends that are interested in discovering the universal language of making and trials / tribulations that will undoubtedly accompany such a quest or friends that would like to know more how to navigate 16 countries in a woefully inadequate vehicle.
You might even know company owners or digital marketing managers that would be interested to support this project.
Thank you for spreading the word and being awesome :D
JOIN THE JOURNEY
Sam Haywood – Industrial Design, (Some) Mechanical Know-How, Documentation, Spew Bag Challenges, Visa Whisperer
Simone Steel – Industrial Design, Project Management Extraordinaire, Quiet, Straight Talker, Mac Coach, Visa Whisperer
Wil Campbell – Industrial Design, Mechanical Know-How, MacGyver-ism, Visa Whisperer