Bridge crane joins the Calgary Stampede

The popularity of the claw grab machine remains strong today.

Visit a pier, amusement arcade or fairground, and you can guarantee that all ages from young kids to grandparents are doing their best to manipulate a metal claw into plucking a cuddly toy from the pile.

A worthy prize source, but one that pales in comparison to the machine that was a popular draw at the 2023 Calgary Stampede rodeo in Canada.

The difference was that this claw machine was designed on a much larger scale, with a workstation bridge crane being used as a vital component.

Calgary Stampede 2023's giant pick-up claw machine was the result of a collaboration between family-owned crane manufacturer/service provider, Kristian Electric Calgary and Calgary-based display company, Exhibit Studio. Kristian Electric was selected by Exhibit Studio following extensive research to find the most suitable collaborator.

“After researching companies on Google, I reached out to Kristian Electric to set up a meeting,” says David Stokes, Exhibit Studio managing partner.

“Their enthusiasm for the project and capability as a supplier is what led us to work together.”

Stokes explains that this was a custom project where this crane was part of a solution to vehicle manufacturer GMC’s brand activation at the Calgary Stampede: “We love challenges so it was great to take on a big, unique project that delivered an exceptional one-of-a-kind experience.”

The conception of the claw machine came after working with an idea from marketing company Momentum Worldwide. The plan was to create a machine that would work on the same principle as a standard prize grabber, but on a much larger scale. Users would be able to use a specially simulated control system to move the claw. The unique twist was that the control station simulated driving a GMC pick-up, which was accomplished by mounting a camera on the claw, thus providing users with a bird's eye view of the truck bed. From there, users could attempt to grab the hard-coated styrofoam, individually marked prize boxes (the users could win prizes such as barbecues, kayaks and Yeti coolers).

In order to make the concept succeed, Exhibit Studio contacted Kristian Electric Calgary, with sales representative Leonard Forcey in charge of sourcing an overhead crane that would meet the remit.

The initial planning process involved a consultation with Exhibit Studio, determining their requirements for every aspect. These included timeframes, costs, specific regulations, health and safety, lifting applications and facility capabilities and limitations. In fact, Kristian Electric was working to a tight deadline of mere weeks before the Calgary Stampede launched.

With all of the requirements in mind, Forcey came up with the answer of a free-standing, motorised workstation bridge crane: "Considering what they needed [the crane] to do, I knew a workstation crane would be the best fit for providing full movement for this project."

The remote control facet of the crane has the ability to function in tandem with Exhibit Studio's custom-made control system to enable the claw to be manipulated. “The system was fitted with a custom claw, which users would manipulate from a control station to try and retrieve prize boxes from the back of a 2024 GMC Denali pickup truck,” says Stokes.

The crane was integrated with custom Arduino programmed controls to tie into the claw machine mechanism. Arduino is an open-source platform that uses its hardware and software to get an understanding of its surrounding environment. With the addition of proximity sensors, this enabled the claw to return to a default home location, ensuring more precise movement.

An important part of the design was to make sure it had the requisite strength to withstand 10-day 12-hour usage. To that end, the aluminium claw was customised and built up with industrial grave pulleys and cables, with aircraft cables employed to ensure protection against potential wear and tear.

Although the weight of the custom aluminium claw used for the claw machine was under 50lbs, Kristian Electric provided a Spanco free-standing workstation bridge crane that boasted a lifting capacity of 2,000lbs.

With respect to meeting the tight deadline before the summer launch of the 2023 event, Kristian Electric had a big advantage. Having formed long-running working relationships with various dealers, Kristian Electric called on the services of Las Vegas-based company Spanco. The Spanco team managed to complete the project within the tight deadline. Among its tasks, Spanco custom-painted the workstation crane, which was ultimately built, painted and transported from Vegas to Calgary in just under three weeks.

Installation of the custom-made workstation crane posed another challenge for the Kristian Electric team: because the crane was only required for the 10-day event, this meant that installation could not be on a permanent basis. Kristian Electric Calgary overcame this issue by employing a structural engineer to secure the workstation crane on rig mats for good, sturdy stability without the need to make this a permanent arrangement.

Safety was another vital consideration for the team. In order to prevent the claw from going out of bounds from the truck box area, emergency stops and proximity sensors were included. “We also added red floor decals to the display,” says Stokes, “which marked out the home position and travel path of the claw to indicate where employees should avoid standing.”

Commenting on the experience, Kristian Electric sums up by saying that “while the crane business is full of ups and downs, this partnership was unquestionably one of the most exciting projects we have completed in the past few years!”