The Idea
It's 2009, and I decided to change things up a bit.

We've had sponsors before, but never have we had a LAN Sponsorship deal that would improve or otherwise contribute to our experience at i37.

One company instantly popped into my mind - Novint, creators of the Novint Falcon. You'll remember we discussed it when the CEO of Novint announced that there would be a competition for people to win a Falcon of their own. Some of us tried, but the timezones difference made it nearly impossible.

The overall consensus was that we would like to try before we buy, and so I contacted the CEO of Novint with this in mind.

The Deal
A couple of days later I was put in touch with John T from Novint. After much discussion, we both agreed on LAN Sponsorship for ATK !!!

They will provide us with 3 NOVINT FALCONS & PISTOL GRIPS! All we have to do is pay for half the postage and promote them at the LAN.


So, what will we be doing with these Falcons & Pistol Grips?

  • At least 1 (probably 2) will be used for demoing FPS games over the long weekend.
  • We will invite anyone from the LAN to come and try them out.
  • At the end of the event all 3 falcons and pistol grips will be given away (£40 each) to ATK members at the LAN! (see below for more details)
Note: Because of the effort I've put into organising this, one of the Falcons will be reserved for me.

Ways we will advertise Novint and their Falcons:

  • 13 ATK members will have the Novint logo on their back.
  • When the projector is pointing against the wall, we will mention on some slides that anyone can come to our seats to try out Falcons (I checked with Wizzo, this is fine).
  • I will post on the MPUK forums saying that anyone can come and play with some Falcons (I checked with Wizzo, this is fine).
  • If we run some game servers at the LAN, we will talk to people in-game about the Novint Falcon.
  • There will be Novint banners up on ATKCommunity.com.


How is this going to work?
As a result of these new plans, I will need to be on the end of the row at the LAN. I will NOT expect everyone to be helping at the same time on this, but I will expect everyone to help me at some point over the long weekend (even if only for 10 minutes).

It would be sensible that the person who next wants to help the most with this sits next to me at the end. Please post below if you fancy that role.


What is the Novint Falcon anyway?
The Novint Falcon is an entirely new type of game controller. Replacing your mouse or joystick, the Falcon is, essentially, a small robot that lets you experience true virtual touch unlike any controller in history. This is a must have bundle for any serious gamer, particularly First Person Shooter gamers. The Falcon also has a compelling library of compatible games (described below), and this bundle includes a great beginning collection of them including the Orange Box from Valve.
For more information see the previous thread here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ1Rz2clLS0

On their site you'll see that the Novint Falcon & Pistol Grip bundle sells for $199.99 (approx £122 excluding postage from the US). This would easily be £175+ with postage to the UK for the bundle.

Receiving one from ATK for £40 is therefore a massive bargain, and I expect if there is large demand within our ATK group that we will either draw names out of a hat or if people agree, we could have bidding.