In our first edition of the Event Tech at Winter Olympics 2018 series, we walked you through the tech behind the scenes. The event website, event ticketing, event app, cashless payments and more, the PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games are at the top of their event tech game.

In this edition, let’s step up a little and explore the actual high tech implemented on the ground at this mega event this year. After all, it’s this Tech that transforms such a hugely popular sports event into a much talked about spectacle. After-all, it’s not every day that Google dedicates the day’s doodle to you, is it?

Tech on display

Robots are everywhere!

The Winter Games have truly delivered when it comes to on ground technology. The event is highly robo-centric, no exaggerations here! From robots at airports, cleaning and acting as translators to foreign visitors to adorable robot ski competitions, PyeongChang 2018 has it all!

Courtesy of LG Electronics, an Olympic Partner, visitors coming in from other parts of the world were greeted by the sight of washing machine-sized robots at the airport cleaning the premises.

Apart from this, GenieTalk set up robots that could translate multiple languages for foreigners using voice recognition, apart from scanning their boarding passes as well, making it convenient for them.

Organizers have provided eighty-five AI-powered robots across the venue to serve as guides for attendees, providing game timings, schedule and tips.

But the highlight of it all was the ski competition where 30 adorable robots controlled by their athletes battled it out on the ice. Now, who wouldn’t want to witness that ski race?

What’s more, the Olympic opening ceremony had its own twist to tradition with a robot breaking through a wall to help pass on the torch!

The Most Epic Drone Show Ever!

Drones are all the hype these days when it comes to such large-scale events (Superbowl anyone?). The Olympic Games’ answer to Super-bowl, the PyeongChang Winter Olympics 2018 featured a record-breaking 1218 drones putting up a spectacular drone show including a formation of the Olympic Games logo during the opening ceremony.

This epic drone show captured the attention of the press and people equally across the globe. Apart from this, drones were also an important part of security at the Winter Games.

In a spectacular first for these games, yet again, Octo Copter, a drone measuring 11kg, made its short run carrying the Olympic torch through the city square before the ceremony.

Along with this, unmanned drones equipped with HD thermal imaging camera were spread across the venue providing a bird’s eye view of the entire arena apart from monitoring the temperature and the overall environment to ensure safety and security across the venue.

The Perfect Virtual Event Experience

The Winter Games 2018 were broadcasted live in more than 50 countries on TV and worldwide on various Social Media platforms including Facebook as well as Snapchat. With the world watching, the organisers left no stone unturned in creating an experience out of these broadcasts.

In Korea yet sitting at home watching the Games? No problem. Korean broadcasters, with the boon that is ultra-high definition, people at home can experience the entire game within the comforts of their home with no details amiss.

There were VR Cameras lined up across the arena to let viewers at home have the perfect virtual experience of the event. You wouldn’t want to regret being there in person after all now, would you? Not to mention the 360-degree video broadcast over Social Media.

The best display of broadcasting tech, however, was KT Corp’s ‘time slice.’ Basically, ‘time slice’ was a concept where cameras were mounted on the athlete’s helmet.

These cameras are meant to capture the athletes mid-motion from a variety of angle to provide a first-person perspective of the whole game. The result is truly breathtaking!

Self-driving vehicles; enough said

If unmanned drones and skiing robots weren’t enough, here’s something to transport you right into 2050! The Winter Games 2018 provides a limited number of autonomous buses and cars to transport visitors from venue to venue, showing them around the ice arena. These vehicles are powered by the much talked about 5G Technology

What exactly is 5G?

Winter Olympics 2018 have become the testing ground for this latest groundbreaking technology. With all these high-tech gadgets around, you ought to have a strong tech to back it all up. This is where 5G comes in. Intel partnered up with South Korean communication company KT Corp to make this happen.

Taking Internet Connectivity to the next level, 5G provides high-bandwidth data across the venue. The Internet speed in 5G? A whopping 10GB per second! This 5G Wi-Fi tech has successfully powered a powerful live webcast, self-driving cars, buses and more throughout the games.

In this race for 5G, the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Games definitely took the prize!

Training with Tech

Last, but not the least, we can’t help but mention all the coolest training gears powered by the latest tech. With athletes from more than 90 countries competing in the games, it is imminent that they stay on top of their game. So here is some of our favourite training tech from this year’s Winter Games:

1. SmartSuite:

Dutch skaters Suzanne Schulting and Sjinkie Knegt trained in high tech with smart suits provided by none other than Samsung.The suits were embedded with sensors connected directly to their coach’s Samsung mobile handsets.

With the help of these suits, trainers can monitor the athletes’ body data in real time. This is indeed a really cool way to improve upon their postures and movements on the ice using real-time data.

2. The Halo Headset:

This gear is used by the US ski team for increasing strength and endurance for these high-level athletes. Developed by Halo Neuroscience, this gear is meant to transfer transcranial stimulations to accomplish this task.

To break it down in simpler terms, the idea is to electrically stimulate the part of the brain responsible for motor skills helping in improving each movement while strengthening the muscle memory and making it easier to build new skills.

3. Strobe Glasses:

Another powerful tech used by the US team is the strobe glasses manufactured by Vima. These glasses are meant to strengthen the athletes’ vision when they are turning towards the side of their non-dominant eye.

When they turn, there’s a shutter on the glass that strobes the dominant eye, making the non-dominant eye more powerful. Thus, the movements with would be just as sharp and strong.

A special mention to Oakley’s Prizm lenses and heating suits by Ralph Lauren.

The Winter Games have been a roller coaster ride. More than a sports event, these games are a mega-spectacle with the world watching! With the success of tech at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics 2018, Olympic Games promise to take it further in 2022 with advanced AI, face recognition and more and we, for one are super excited to see what they have in store!

What has been your favourite event-tech from the list? Leave us your opinion in the comments or connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

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