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Alan Kulwicki: A Champion's Story

Education | Entertainment | Museum

After a national RFP request, the Milwaukee County Historical Society (MCHS) selected Balance Studios for the full multi-faceted exhibit ideation, conceptualization, design, and development of their “Alan Kulwicki: A Champion’s Story.” The exhibit leads visitors on a journey of hardship, triumph, tragedy, and renewal where they learn about the life and legacy of one of Milwaukee’s native sons. From his humble beginnings in Milwaukee to becoming a Winston Cup champion in Atlanta, Alan’s life represent themes that embody Milwaukee, as well as the people and businesses that are proud to call her home.

In order to ignite excitement and interest in a wide range of ages, this exhibit integrates a delicate balance of traditional objects and labels with some of today’s most cutting edge technology to present an experience that inspires, informs, and educates through its five core themes: Passionate, dedication and pursuit of a dream; Education and Entrepreneurialism; Championship Performance; Compassionate Humanity, and good old fashioned Hard Work.

Project image — left
Project image — right
Ideation

Ideation

As the first part of the exhibit development, Balance worked collaboratively with MCHS on the ideation of the exhibit concept, branding and overall look and feel.

Balance then developed and designed the comprehensive exhibit brand, including the logo design and brand standards that established the foundation of the exhibit design, press kit, tradeshow booth, fundraising efforts, online, mobile, App, gaming, and kiosk development.

Press Kit

Press Kit

Balance designed a very unique press kit for media introductions, fundraising and awareness of the new exhibit, as well as facilitated printing with vendors and shipping to MCHS.

This unique press kit presentation included items that were iconic of Alan’s racing career. They were housed in a unique box embossed with Alan’s Goodyear tire and held together using a branded belly band. Upon opening the box, the recipient received a message about the upcoming exhibit on the inside box cover. The following items were found inside the box, with each item securely placed in custom dye cut foam. 
- Custom designed USB drive of Alan’s #7 car that provided a digital copy of all press kit materials and photos of Alan.
- A briefcase business card holder with the exhibit logo - Alan was always known to carry a briefcase.
- A comb with the website link - Alan was never caught without one. 
- A folder with sponsorship information and included four headshots of Alan and the press release on custom letterhead.
- Custom trading cards of Alan with his life and racing stats.
- A coaster that actuated an augmented reality racing game experience.

Trade Show Booth & Banner Design

Trade Show Booth & Banner Design

An engaging yet mobile trade show booth that could be easily set up, torn down, and transported to NASCAR and ASA races to aid with fundraising and overall exhibit awareness was an important exhibit component.  Balance designed a custom booth structure along with four banners that met those exact specifications. As importantly, the trade booth structure and banners were designed with the intent of being repurposed in the final exhibit which demonstrated a significant ROI.  

Photo Opportunity with Alan’s Car

Photo Opportunity with Alan’s Car

As a means to create a new and unique experience working to capture the attention of event patrons, ignite the ‘buzz’ of the upcoming exhibit, working to capture patrons email for future marketing and promotions, and ultimately to support the exhibit FANfunding (crowd funding) efforts, Balance created an augmented reality experience where patrons were able to take their photo with Alan’s life sized #7 car-virtually of course.  Shortly afterwards, each person received a custom designed e-newsletter with a link to their photo found on the exhibit website.   

Fundraising Video

Fundraising Video

To aid in the upfront exhibit fundraising efforts, Balance created a video that tells the amazing and unique story of Alan’s racing career - The Underbird Story – as seen through the eyes of people that knew him. The video is an emotional and exciting look at Alan’s career through a combination of interviews, still photography and racing footage. An important piece of the video is MCHS Executive Director explaining the exhibit background information and a plea to help fund the initiative. This video was multi-purposed for integration into an augmented reality fundraising app and for the exhibit by removing the fundraising component.

Watch Video
www.KulwickiExperience.com Website

www.KulwickiExperience.com Website

Balance designed and developed a website as a quick and accessible venue to send fans of Alan and potential sponsors to learn more about the exhibit. The website contains a robust FANfunding section allowing patrons to help crowd fund the exhibit, an event calendar showcasing what races and tradeshows MCHS was attending, the ability to sign up for an eNewsletter to stay informed on exhibit progress, as well as information about the exhibit, Alan and MCHS. The website is built with a custom content management system that is multi-purposed to control two of the augmented reality applications, as well as the website content.  

After the exhibit opened, MCHS updated the website to show their continued fundraising efforts, added exhibit information and an Augmented Showcase page, where visitors are able to download the Time Trials image target and access to a link driving them to Apple’s iTunes store to download the Alan Kulwicki Stock Car Racing Game App.

Full Exhibit Layout & Design

Full Exhibit Layout & Design

After the first phase of fundraising was complete, the full exhibit layout and design began. Balance created 3D renderings of the exhibit layout and components. An exciting challenge was that the exhibition hall is rented out for events on a weekly basis, the entire exhibit and its individual component needed to be mobile or easily covered.  

Design & Fabrication

Design & Fabrication

Balance designed and facilitated the printing for large wall murals, a donation panel, portable exhibit banners to accompany artifacts, and light pole banners hung right outside MCHS to promote the attract visitors to the new exhibit.

To maintain brand consistency and to integrate stock car racing into each exhibit component, Balance designed and fabricated custom kiosk applications utilizing NASCAR tires for the Time Trials Augmented Reality Application and the Dairyland Demons: History of Wisconsin Auto Racing Touchscreen Kiosk.

Time Trials Kiosk

Time Trials Kiosk

Augmented Reality Application

Utilizing the Time Trials Augmented Reality Racing game concept previously created for the MCHS fundraising drive, Balance Studios updated the visual and gaming experience to work seamlessly into the custom design to design/construct two mobile Augmented Reality kiosk gameplay stations. MCHS plans on expanding the App to include multiple players racing, as well as the selection of different cars and tracks in the future.

Time Trials Augmented Reality Game

Time Trials Augmented Reality Game

Augmented Reality Application

When attending a racing event, patrons receive a “goodie” bag when the first arrive. As part of their loot, they found a custom designed coaster driving them to the MCHS booth at the event. At the booth, when placing the coaster on top of a "placemat" image, the patron activated an augmented reality racing game allowing them to race Alan’s car around a track and try to beat their own time! MCHS captured the patron’s contact information to keep up to date on the exhibit development and when the augmented reality app would be available for download. The coaster also contained a QR code linking them directly to the augmented reality showcase page on the Kulwicki Experience website. There are two additional versions of the app – see below under Exhibit Components - Alan Kulwicki Stock Car Augmented Reality Racing Game.

Sponsorship Augmented Reality Application

Sponsorship Augmented Reality Application

Augmented Reality Application

For a very unique and unforgettable fundraising tool, Balance created an augmented reality application to help obtain sponsorship for the exhibit. This AR experience was launched from a round coaster where Alan’s car emerges from the users tabletop, then speeds down a virtual ramp leaving track marks in its path. In addition, users could access the fundraising video and learn about sponsorship opportunity levels. Finally, with the integration of a custom content management system, MCHS could customize the augmented reality 3D #7 car, in real time, to show how the prospective sponsors’ logo appears on the specific section of car.

Alan Kulwicki Stock Car Racing Game

Alan Kulwicki Stock Car Racing Game

Augmented Reality Application

To aid in the ongoing fundraising efforts and to allow visitors to take the very unique augmented reality Alan Kulwicki gaming experience home, the Time Trials Augmented Reality Kiosk found in the actual exhibit was re-purposed and optimized to create the mobile gaming App version ready for download in the iTunes App Store.

Dairyland Demons: History of Wisconsin Auto Racing Touchscreen Kiosk

Dairyland Demons: History of Wisconsin Auto Racing Touchscreen Kiosk

Touch Screen Application

The custom designed and developed kiosk application is housed in a design fit for a NASCAR themed exhibit – Balance designed and fabricated the custom kiosk application and sound structure. The educational kiosk features three videos shot, edited and produced by Balance Studios telling the history of racing in Wisconsin and how Alan got started in engineering and entrepreneurship with the help of Stan Johnson and Greg Krueger. In addition to the videos, the kiosk has an interactive map showing all of the racing locations in WI and the US and an edu-tainment math quiz featuring a 2D animated racing character wearing Alan Kulwicki's racing suit.

“The team at Balance Studios is amazing! Their passion and enthusiasm for every project is exhilarating, and their incredible creativity is unmatched. But most importantly, they have been able to use and apply this innovative creativity in close concert with our vision for the project, and truly taken what we thought possible to a whole other level. Finally, they are fun to work with, and our guests love what they have designed and produced. Accordingly, I would recommend Balance to any organization seeking an innovative, creative, interactive, and educational experience for their guests, and, you will have a great time along the way.”

~ Scott Stroh, Former Executive Director



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