How Gapstars Navigated the RedBull TukTuk Tournament
One year on, here’s how Gapstars built an app and raced across magical Sri Lanka.
Around this time a year ago, we built an app, strapped flamingos on a TukTuk, raised our flags, climbed mountains and scampered across elephants — experiencing the magic of the TukTuk Tournament.
The event included 78 participants on 35 teams from 15 countries racing each other across Sri Lanka.
Wait! I’m confused — What’s a TukTuk?
The TukTuk, commonly known as a three-wheeler or trishaw is a motorized version of the pulled or cycle rickshaw. There are many different TukTuk types, designs, and variations which are widely used for urban transportation across Asia.
The most common type is characterized by a sheet-metal body on three wheels with a canvas roof.
The TukTuk Tournament — What’s it all about?
The TukTuk tournament is a real-world gamification event organized by TukTukrental.com powered by RedBull & Gapstars.
The tournament is a two-week self-drive festival & adventure where participants race against each other across Sri Lanka to collect points.
Whoever wins most points within a given time and kilometre limit wins the tournament. The event aims to get participants off the beaten track and into a magical journey experiencing real, authentic Sri Lanka, in a game-like setting.
Watch the full TukTuk Tournament Movie here.
Navigating the Tournament
We partnered with TukTukrental.com to create a tournament app that helps participants navigate toward challenges across Sri Lanka. From trying out local cuisines to kitesurfing, from spotting wild elephants to helping with a beach clean-up — there are over 1000+ challenges all pointed on the tournament app.
The app also has real-time GPS tracking of teams, leaderboard on points and integration with Instagram, where teams have to post pictures after completing challenges to earn points.
There’s no fixed route, the entire island is yours and you have to choose your own adventure in an attempt to collect the most points. Your team of 2–3 people will battle roads, traffic, competitors, weather, and local conditions (and the occasional elephant) to gain as many points as possible in the time limit.
Stars on Tuk
We had our stars Mark & Judith — Travelmonsters, from The Netherlands — hop on the Star TukTuk to take on the challenge. From long sandy beaches to watching leopards & elephants roam: here’s their full journey.
Due to all of the uncertainty in the world surrounding COVID-19, the organizers behind the TukTuk Tournament have decided to cancel the 2020 festivities.
However, we are looking forward to doubling the fun in 2021. Want to join the adventure next year? Enter now.
About Gapstars
Gapstars runs a successful model for European tech startups and scale-ups to set up remote development teams in Sri Lanka.
Gapstars is a key talent and technology supplier for top tech companies in The Netherlands. The company has 100+ engineers including full-stack developers, UX engineers, and software testers.
