312 m2 Of Chatbot Interface
We had the honour to develop the chatbot for the 2018 World Wrestling Championships hosted in Budapest. A special feature of the bot was that within a trivia game, the giant LED displays in the venue gave feedback to the users.
According to the decision of the International Wrestling Federation (United World Wrestling, UWW) in September 2016, Budapest organized the World Championships of all three disciplines: Greco-Roman, freestyle and women’s wrestling. The Hungarian capital also hosted the sport’s top event in 2013, at Papp László Sportarena.
Since we are speaking of a world event, the chatbot was available in Hungarian and English. The prominent goal for the bot was to entertain and activate the fans who are stayig at the venue.
The chatbot had a trivia game feature, which we call ‘QuizTime’. QuizTime is based on a simple quiz scheme: one question, three possible answers, which the players could choose from. Small gifts were drawn among the correct respondents.
How QuizTime works
The game took place in the following steps:
- A short break occurred in the schedule.
- The hosts appeared, announced the beginning of the game in Hungarian and English.
- A tutorial of the game started to play ( hun/eng ).
- Players were notified about the beginning of the game for one last time.
- The quiz has started, and the first question appeared.
- Players had 45 seconds to answer the question
- The correct answer showed upon the screens
- After closing the polls, a prize draw started among the correct respondents
The questions came as cards for the users. Possible answers have been set as the buttons of the card. After answering, the chatbot responded that the answer was received and processed.
After the time has expired, all users in the game received a message whether their answer was correct or not. After that, a prize draw started among the correct respondents, then it sent another message to the lucky winner as well as to the other players giving the right answer.
Every participant had one chance to answer each question. If they tried again later, the bot informed the user that their response had already been received. If they slipped out of the 45-second time frame, the chatbot indicated that the question was unfortunately not active at that time.
The giant display interface
We have designed a unique HTML5 Canvas animation interface.
- As long as there is no active question, the tutorial showing how to use the game runs
- The active question state had the following elements
- Active question — answers awaiting (45sec)
- Closed question (5sec)
- Prize draw (5sec)
Question screen
On the Question screen, the question and the possible answers appeared both in Hungarian and English.
The fastest 145 players — after responding through the chatbot — could see themselves on the giant displays; their Facebook profile picture appeared in a bubble. The colour of the confetti the bubble threw and the outline of the avatar matched the colour of the marked answer (blue, green or purple).
Correct answer screen
After the question is closed, the program will wait a few seconds. At this point, the showmen have the opportunity to announce the correct answer and increase the excitement before the draw.
Prize draw screen
We have developed an animation similar to a slot machine. The winner was already selected when the animation started, and a maximum of 19 other correct respondents was placed in the “machine”.
The questions
QuizTime questions could be sent by administrators via an admin interface. We wanted if every Hungarian or English-speaking user could participate in the game, so all questions and answers were uploaded in both languages.
Additional functions
In addition to the game features, users could subscribe to the news feed, view the program schedule in Messenger, and get information about the venue.
Admin interface
The News feed and QuizTime questions can be managed through an admin interface
QuizTime questions
QuizTime questions can be created, deleted, or modified at any time. Each question can be sent into the game only once. For closed (already played) questions, we also store statistical data, such as how many players played in each second in 45 seconds, and exactly what response they chose.
The record number of the record was 488, so this many responses were received successfully. So the bot managed to activate more than 488 people in just 45 seconds!
We highlight the winning player on the question sheet. For the ease of identification, the admin interface had a link to the user’s Facebook profile.
News feed
In addition to the entertainment of the fans, the other main function of the chatbot was to inform them; two news packages were sent daily via the bot. The news source was the website of the World Championships and the Federation.
The news packages could have been sent via the admin interface. When adding the news, only the URL of the news had to be copied to the appropriate input, and the metadata was already loaded into the system. We also provided the opportunity to post different news for Hungarian and English users.
Over 6,000 visitors played with us during the World Championships, with a peak of 444 individual players in a game, meaning nearly 10 players per second.
QuizTime has run on eight 6 x 3,5 m and one 16 x 9 m displays, which is a total of 312 m2. With this, we are proud to say that the application made for the World Wrestling Championships is RoboRobo’s largest chatbot ever!
Disclaimer: this is a translated version of an article originally posted on our own botblog.hu, on November 28, 2018.
