18 Apr 2013 Norwegian soda company sets world’s largest message in a bottle adrift
Sending messages in bottles has been around since at least the Ancient Greeks… but now as part of a promotional campaign, Solo, a soft drink company based in Norway, has built an 8-meter tall replica soda bottle outfitted with solar panels, a camera, and tracking technology and set it adrift in the ocean. [Click pic to enlarge]
When Solo wanted to run a contest involving a sea-worthy bottle, it enlisted Bård Eker, co-owner of several vehicle design companies, to handle the construction. The finished product, which was completed after several months of work, measures 2.5 meters in diameter, weighs 2,5 tons, and is even registered and insured as a boat.
Solo set the bottle adrift off the coast of Tenerife in the Canary Islands on March 14 and left it at the mercy of the currents. Inside the bottle is a case of Solo and a 12 square meter letter in various languages explaining that whoever finds the giant bottle wins a finder’s party in the nearest town and lists a phone number to call. It is still adrift.
The company has also set up a website where users can post their guess as to where they think the bottle will eventually land, with a correct guess winning one real bottle of Solo for each nautical mile the oversized one travels.
As you might imagine, you can’t just dump a giant bottle into the ocean – at least not publicly – without taking a few legal precautions first. Solo consulted shipping insurance companies, ocean researchers, and marine biologists to ensure that the vessel fit the proper requirements for a drifting object in international waters.
As such, the enormous bottle is equipped with navigation lights, an Automatic Identification System, a radar reflector, and GPS tracking technology, all powered through solar panels on the top. It also has a customized camera that is programmed to tweet a 360-degree panorama every eight hours and is outfitted with nozzles that clear the lenses with fresh water from an onboard tank…..
Gizmag.com: Read more
See the Solo ad here….
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