My Other Vehicle is Unmanned – Sketchbattle Pro 17 Chicago

Posted on May 15, 2019 by

Over the past 7 years, the Sketchbattle has evolved and grown from a small intimate cocktail party and sketching competition to a significant and critically important stop on the the North American Auto Show circuit.  Except for one event in the fall of 2014 where the “experiment” morphed into a graffiti battle, the previous 16 events were centered and focused on automotive design.  The Sketchbattle Pro event in Chicago as presented by AUVSI as part of the massive Xponential Conference broke with tradition and will go down in history as the first product-design oriented Sketchbattle (many more are coming and are in the midst of their planning stages).

IMG_4217So, for Sketchbattle #17, we present to you the theme “All Things Unmanned”.

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5th Avenue Death Match – Sketchbattle Pro #16 New York

Posted on May 4, 2019 by

Just when we think we have the “Experiment” part eliminated from our event title, we do something new and exciting.  In New York at the Jalopnik office we were presented with something that had never happened in 15 previous events – a tie.  And how we handled that will likely happen again, so we present to you our first “Death Match”.IMG_8964

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Today, Today, Today

Posted on April 17, 2019 by

In the midst of Manhatten  8 designers will come together in an epic clash of stress, drama and talent to compete for the title of Sketchmaster at the inaugural Sketchbattle Pro New York thanks to the support of Jalopnik and Gizmodo Media.  There are fewer than 20 tickets left so get them fast at Jalopnik’s website or ours.

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Big Apple, Big Deal, Sketchbattle #16 New York

Posted on April 9, 2019 by

We are pleased and proud to announce our first Sketchbattle Pro event in New York City timed to coincide with the New York Auto Show.  Can the news get any better than that?  How about we are doing the event in Jalopnik’s swanky Headquarters (full disclosure, never been there, have no idea if it is swanky or not, but you don’t either so let’s just run with it).  Details are below as well as a list of our contestants (which will be updated daily as we add new sketchers daily until full)….

Sketchbattle16 NYC v5

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Will Autonomous Vehicles cause accidents?

Posted on March 18, 2019 by

Recently I participated in AV19 Silicon Valley, the Autonomous Vehicles conference held annually on the west coast.  As the moderator of the closing panel on Industry Standards and Governmental Regulations, I had a chance to pose questions on the future of safety to Walter Stockwell, Director of Safety Policy at Starsky Robotics and Bert Kaufman, Head of Corporate and Regulatory Affairs at Zoox.  And while the 3 days of Workshops, Presentations and Panel Discussions clearly proved that self-driving vehicles will save countless lives, the question of “overall safety” kept popping up in my mind.  More on that point later, here are a few things that were presented that may be of interest.

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Bert Kaufmann/ZOOX, Walter Stockwell/Starsky and Frank Schwartz/AACS, the author

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What does Motorsports have to do with Business?

Posted on February 16, 2019 by

So why is a post about racing on our business page?  Because at AACS, our business is built around the lessons learned from 39 years of participating in Motorsports activities.  While many may consider Motorsports a hobby, it is at the core of what we do.  Our team attacks your business development objectives with the same passion we attack turn 1 at Indianapolis (where we went from 28th to 14th after the drop of the green flag).  We have participated at many different levels of Motorsports, from autocrossing, to road rallyes, to track days, ending up wheel-to-wheel racing with the country’s top talents.  And the results speak for themselves; our winning percentage of more than 1 out of every 3 events, with a podium finish almost 70% of the time is almost unheard of in the sport.  So here are the lessons that drive our passion as we work on your Business Development activities, or as I prefer to say “Everything I know about Business, I learned from Racing”.38847466_10215859643754483_7147583612206972928_n Continue reading →

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Sketchbattle 15 Winners!

Posted on January 19, 2019 by

If you have any question that Detroit is the center of the automotive design universe, Sketchbattle 15 should alleviate your doubts.  More than 600 people, a mix of automotive designers, engineers, suppliers, Detroit-area businesses, the local arts community,  automotive enthusiasts, media and even Michigan Legislators, came together to celebrate design as a talent as the newest Sketchmaster was crowned.  Before we give you a rundown of the rounds and the winner, let us take you through the activities of the evening from beginning to end…..

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Historic St. Andrew’s Hall, site of Sketchbattle 15                                           photo: Charles Ruggles

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