A code-locked vault for Subway's Sidekicks launch during a big game week in Las Vegas. Answer the trivia, punch in the code, and the vault hisses open on a treat. It played on the sports shows all week.
A host asks a trivia question. Get it right and you get a four-digit code. Punch it in, hit the last key, and the vault comes alive: the lights race down the tube, the pressure hisses out, the latch lets go and the lid swings open on one of three new Sidekicks. Pick your treat. Get it wrong and the lights go red and the alarm goes off. On camera, it looks like a bank job. In your hands, it feels like you cracked it.
Subway was launching Sidekicks, three new treats, during the busiest week in sports media. Every show in town was broadcasting live, and every one of them needed something worth putting on camera.
The idea: a vault. Answer a trivia question, earn a four-digit code, crack it open and take your pick.
It had to read as a vault from across a set and still be light enough for a host to hold up on camera. A green tube in Subway's colors, heavy yellow caps like bank hardware, a keypad, a speaker and a strip of light down the side.
Three of them, built side by side, every part painted and ready to assemble.
The vault does exactly what a magician does. The keypad beeps no matter what you press. The pressure, the alarm, the safe-cracking, all of it is theater, run from one key the host presses at the end. That one key starts the lights and the hiss, and a servo pulls the latch.
We scaled the technology down as far as it would go, so nothing could fail on live TV. Watch it a few times and you might spot it. In the moment, nobody does.
Every vault was assembled and wired in the lab with Adam, then tested until the lid opened the same way every time: code, light, hiss, pop.
Three vaults went out with staff and celebrity guests. They played trivia with fans, handed out codes, and let people pick a treat. The vault turned up on the sports shows broadcasting that week, cracked open by players live on air.
We worked on this project before founding TinyRobot.
