As one of the global cities in Asia, people in Hong Kong are always on the run, for work, for life, for unaccomplished goals. After we weather the storm, we all hope that our “sweat” can turn into something “sweet.” As a message of encouragement to the public, in this year’s detour event we created Cotton Run, a pioneer running machine that combines sports with dessert-making.

Cotton Run consists of a wheel-like kinetic treadmill and a cotton candy machine. The exterior of the treadmill is animated with thunder, lightning, and mist to mimic a thunderstorm and the inside is equipped with a screen that displays cotton clouds. As one run on the treadmill, his/her energy can activate the connecting machine that produce cotton candy. The more the person runs, the more cotton-candy produced.

The making of Cotton Run was truly an interdisciplinary collaboration within the team: design and fabrication by architects; fogging, structure, and mechanics by engineers; animation by graphic designers; arduino electronic and unity 3D game system by media artists and programmers; and cotton-candy making by our “dessert chefs”.  The interdisciplinary collaboration among different specialists have made Cotton Run a unique media artwork.

The entire project was developed and fabricated at our Fabrication Lab in the New Territories, Hong Kong. With CNC fabrication technology, we customized all parts with high precision and great efficiency. A couple of wheels were prototyped before the final version in order to ensure perfect mechanics and crafts.

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Cotton Run was designed to deliver a positive message to people who are undergoing hardship as they pursue their dreams, especially for youths in Asia who are constantly challenged by future uncertainty. By combining running and cotton-candy making, we hope that participants would be encouraged that their sweat would eventually turn into something sweet. On an interactional level, Cotton Run made sports more fun by encouraging teamwork and human interaction as the wheel could accommodate two to three persons. Non-runners can also participate by making the cotton-candy.