Digitising the climbing experience

ArtRock is a small company in Tyrol, Austria, with over 30 years of experience providing innovative high-quality solutions for artificial climbing walls and halls (indoor as well as outdoor). The company has about 50 employees and is focused on climbing hold design and fabrication. Climbing walls and halls are designed and built internationally with partners. The core team has a strong background in climbing, design, and architecture – now they are seeking to further develop and discover how to implement new digital technologies. 

The company looking to improve their climbing experience, aimed to identify the potentials of digital transformation, with the intention of designing the “climbing hall of the future”. ArtRock was seeking to reshape climbing halls and transform them into a place where professional climbers and sportive families could feel comfortable and “at home”. As such, the company partnered up with Crowd in Motion to turn climbing into a “kinetic-3D puzzle” experience, making climbing an interactive and fun experience for everyone.

These technological challenges were addressed with the support of EDIH Crowd in Motion. The transformation process started with a 4-day Design Sprint by the EDIH that allowed them to identify one of the key priorities. During this Design Spring specific digital technologies were used to enlarge and enrich the given possibilities of the current offer of primarily athletically oriented climbing scenarios. The idea was to implement this solution by developing interactive climbing walls that could provide feedback, and personalise the climbing experience to each person based on their abilities and preferences, offering different routes and gaming challenges.

As a basic enabling building block, a “smart” digital connected climbing hold was identified. The idea was to integrate IoT technologies so that the digital climbing holds could reliably sense the climber, identifying the person and giving them instructions. The climbing holds would also be connected with each other in order to enhance the experience making it more interactive and dynamic. The information would then be collected, interpreted and – according to a given challenge or task – leveraged to guide actions. The idea is that, in the best-case scenario, this solution can be applicable to existing climbing holds and walls with minimal to no effort required, with low costs and patent eligibility.

With these specifications given, the EDIH started a tech-prototyping bootcamp in close cooperation with the ArtRock team. Crowd in Motion started with a technology scouting and patent research phase and defined the main research questions that would then be answered at the end of the bootcamp. After the tech-prototyping bootcamp, the team followed these efforts with an intense prototyping, testing and validating activity in the digital fabrication lab, FabLab. At the end, the results were documented and presented to the customer.

The result of this first “proof of concept” phase fulfilled all requirements given by the EDIH customer, according to targets in function, costs and the potential for patentability.
In a next stage, the team worked more closely with potential key customers to develop a minimum viable product (MVP), which should then be scaled and real-life-tested in a climbing hall near Innsbruck, one of the world’s hot spots for professional climbing. 

With the developed digital climbing hold and IoT architecture, enabled by the services of the EDIH, ArtRock can now demonstrate an innovative solution for the climbing community, increase market size, as well as differentiate itself significantly from competitors. 

The solution provided by Crowd in Motion ensured: 

• The introduction of innovative digital climbing holds and IoT architecture to the climbing industry. 

• The development of a dashboards that analyses multiple data sources, such an athlete position and steering impulses, to provide deeper insights into athlete’s techniques.

• Data collection in real-life settings to enhance understanding of the dynamic interactions between athletes, sleds and tracks. 

• The development of cost-effective and reliable contact sensors applicable to existing climbing holds.