Achieving a Guinness World Record with Circular Computing’s Remanufactured Devices
The collaboration with Formula E, Google Cloud and ChromeOS offered participants a chance to:
Tackle Diverse Challenges:
Utilise Google Cloud’s cutting-edge AI tools - Vertex AI & Gemini 1.5 Flash to solve critical challenges.
Connect & Collaborate:
Team up and test participant skills.
Gain Expert Insights:
Learn from Formula E and Google Cloud innovators through lightning talks and interactive sessions.
Experience the race up-close:
With a Pitlane walk and Grandstand Practice viewing.
The challenges
The Google Cloud Formula E Hackathon brought together 1000+ participants from top UK companies to take part in the UK’s largest ever AI hackathon.
Participants got hands-on with cutting edge AI across 7 challenges during the final Formula E race of the season. Sustainable, secure and easy-to-manage devices were a priority for the hackathon devices, but the team was short on Chromebooks that could run ChromeOS Flex.
The process
Circular Computing was contracted to rent out 834 enterprise devices running ChromeOS Flex and enrolled in a Managed Guest session. These devices needed to allow for a seamless and secure user experience, while giving participants access to Google Cloud’s cutting-edge AI tools - Vertex and Gemini 1.5 Flash – to tackle critical challenges.
Participants would simply log in with the credentials they received upon signing up for the event. After that, the Managed Guest session would ensure they entered the coding sandbox hosted within the Google Cloud platform.
Results
The devices worked seamlessly and all the attendees were able to securely log into the Managed Guest sessions via their allocated ChromeOS Flex devices.
From here, all attendees could carry out their challenge in the Google Cloud Platform. We had to replace only a single unit throughout the whole event, showing a failure rate of less than 1%. Despite coinciding with CrowdStrike’s crash, which is one of the biggest incidents so far, the event ran successfully and without interruptions.
Formula E and Google Cloud have earned a Guinness World Record for hosting the most participated in-person generative AI hackathon, with 1,130 people attending the all-day event.
KIRSTY RANKIN, Marketing Manager at Google stated:
"Circular Computing made it incredibly easy for us to source sustainable, remanufactured laptops running ChromeOS. The process was seamless, and we were able to quickly get the devices we needed to keep our event running smoothly and sustainably. I highly recommend Circular Computing to any business looking for a sustainable and affordable laptop solution."
"The event demonstrated how we can address modern computing needs sustainably, securely, and cost-effectively on a large scale. We deployed 834 remanufactured devices in a “Managed Guest” Session via the Google Admin Console, providing a unified computing experience for all participants. Attendees accessed their pre-designed work environments seamlessly using their allocated credentials. Despite the CrowdStrike crisis disrupting 8.5 million devices worldwide, our remanufactured devices performed exceptionally well, with only one unit needing replacement, highlighting their performance and quality.."
ANTONIO HRISTOV, Account Executive at Circular Computing
Quality without compromise
We produce leading brand, carbon neutral remanufactured laptops.
Our BSI Kitemark™ certified process remanufactures laptops ‘to equal or better than new’, with up to 40% cost savings compared to the latest models and an RMA of less than 3%.