Since announcing their TV show “America’s Greatest Makers” at the Intel Developers Forum last Summer, the chipmaker has had high hopes that the armchair inventor-based show would build off of the success of their “Make It Wearable” digital campaign and take mainstream interest in hardware tinkering to the next level.
This Tuesday, April 5th, we’ll get our first glimpse of the new show and what producer Mark Burnett has called “the next evolution of storytelling, told simultaneously across many platforms and in many different ways.”
The reality competition show, which pits 24 teams of Makers against each other with weekly build challenges leading up to a $1 million final, heavily revolves around the Intel Curie hardware module – Intel’s answer to an affordable and low-power IoT chip for creating wearables and other sensor-based consumer devices.
From a branded content perspective, the Intel prominence could become nauseating very quickly (surely they considered this?), but from a pure entertainment value, America’s Greatest Makers has the potential to take off in the mainstream as more “non-techies” grow increasingly interested in how the devices they wear, hold and use in their daily lives come into existence.
Hosted by Cara Santa Maria, an LA-based podcaster and tech personality, the show will likely lean heavily on the eccentric mixture of celebrity judges to generate laughs and interest like many competition shows before it. This season’s judges include Massimo Banzi (co-founder and CEO of Arduino), Mayim Bialik (Actress, The Big Bang Theory and neuroscientist), Brian Krzanich (CEO of Intel), Shaquille O’Neal (retired NBA basketball player), Kevin Pereira (angel investor), Carol Roth (business advisor), Mike Rowe (TV show host – Dirty Jobs) and Kenny Smith (TV show host – Inside the NBA).
For those who want to follow along in real time, the show premieres next Tuesday at 9/8 Central on TBS. In the meantime, you can find out more over at AmericasGreatestMakers.com
