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Graco in the Tour de France
07/13/2009 - The big news from the Tour de France this year is the return of seven-time winner and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong.
 Photo courtesy of Nike.The Nike LIVESTRONG Chalkbot pneumatic robot is a high-tech street painting machine that can translate computer and text messages and spray them on the road's surface. People from around the world can visit the Nike LIVESTRONG website to submit a message of hope and inspiration. The Chalkbot sprays the message on the Tour de France route, and the person who submitted the message receives a photograph and details on where their message was placed. View the video about the Chalkbot process on Nike's website.
 Photo courtesy of Nike.The robot was built by Deeplocal and StandardRobot. It uses 48 Graco Airless Guns, 109 RAC tips and 2 Viscount Pumps to spray up to 100,000 messages over the entire course of the Tour de France. The AL Automatic Airless Guns are arranged in two manifolds and each bank of 24 guns is fed by a Viscount 2600 Pump. The trailer-mounted device is fully self-contained and pneumatically "sprays" out messages and graphics.
According to Rich Houtz, Graco Account Manager, "The intent was to develop a 2 inch by 2 inch pixel while driving a vehicle at 1 to 3 miles per hour. This means that at 3 miles per hour, the guns travel 52.8 inches per second. Because of this, the gun's response time was an important consideration for Deeplocal and StandardRobot. They tried using other guns, but the Graco AL Automatic Airless Gun had the best response time that could be managed by the Chalkbot's computer."
View the Nike video "What is a Chalkbot?" to see the Graco equipment in action!
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