This year, Caterpillar celebrated it's 95th anniversary, and Pac-Man turned 40, so to celebrate the occasions, the two companies thought: Mashup?
To create the life-size game board, the company removed roughly 6,880 yd3 (195 m3) of cut/fill dirt to build a maze with 151 corners and 4-ft-tall (1.2-m) walls. The stunt proved to show off CAT’s high-tech capabilities.
The original PAC-MAN game board was loaded into a Cat GRADE with 3D system on a 336 Next Gen excavator.
Cat GRADE with 3D is a factory-integrated grade control system that automates blade movements on the earth movers. According to the company, it takes the human out of 80% of the equation. It also eliminates the need for stakes and grade checkers. Still, the 336 spent about 70 labor hours on the job. Kind of want to John Henry this thing. Me and a shovel vs. the 336.
Multiple Cat dozers, wheel loaders, a 323 excavator, trucks and water wagons all helped with the job while running on the same system to make sure they all followed the same plan
To represent Pac-Man, and ghosts, Blinky, Inky, Pinky, and Clyde, Cat brought in five 236D3 remote controlled skid steer loaders. Avatars were placed atop the loaders to be seen above the maze walls.
Cat then invited five partners and social media influencers to play the game.
Now, I understand that this is all a marketing ploy with each aspect of the game working as a metaphor for Cat products and services, but still, they carved a giant Pac-Man board out of the earth and actually played the game, and that’s just cool.
Personally, it’s not my favorite. It just doesn’t top the massive Jenga game they built in 2014. And yes, that was an unintended pun. I mean, while it was only half of the game’s regulation 54 pieces, Cat’s “Stack” version used earth movers to play with 27 blocks that each weighed 600 pounds.
Either way, I hope they repurposed Pac-Man into a banging holiday maze.
