A look at our favorite entries and winners of the World Map Cup
By: Erin Quinn
Just like the World Cup, our first World Map Cup competition was impressive. We’re not going to lie though; it was more exciting to see you level up your mapping skills each round than it was to watch the actual World Cup. You shared everything from the travel of your teams, to the history of how their journey to the World Cup, to an interactive soccer game with Unity.
Here at Mapbox, we love following along with your process & sharing your feedback with the teams building the tools involved. And wow, do y’all love to learn new skills!
Finally, I would like to say thank Mapbox for creating this really fun and exciting competition. I was waiting frantically each day a new challenge was released! It’s important to note that just like how the World Cup has brought nations together, the #worldmapcup has brought together the skills of modern day cartographers. I have learnt some new skills and had fun whilst doing this #Thankyou. — Tom Stathman, Geo-visualizing the Fifa World Cup with Mapbox
Doing this challenge end to end has exposed me to the stack solution that Mapbox provides for Web GL. With this, the realisation that creating your own maps needn’t be overly complicated, and you can set any narrative you wish to drive your application. This challenge has wet my appetite for future ones, and my own exploration into their Unity solution to create some games to muck about with. I look forward to see what new features they release in the future! — Rory O’Flaherty, A Beginner’s Journey to Visualizing the World Cup, Utilizing Mapbox
But we know you’re dying to know the winners, so without further ado let me introduce your first World Map Cup champions:
Grand Prize
Yi Xu
Yi participated in every challenge we’ve ever shared — from #weekendmaphacks to #worldmapcup. But, he blew us away with his stunning story map illustrating the history of the Iceland team and their first time qualifying for the World Cup.
As Grand Prize winner, Yi will receive a DJI Mavic Drone, one custom, commissioned topographic map from Overview.design, the Guide to Map Design, and of course, Mapbox swag. 🎉
Explore his winning map on Medium and stay tuned for some wicked new maps once Yi gets his drone up!
Runner-Up
Gustavo Youngberg
We loved Gustavo’s head to head map of the world cup. Having used Mapbox for work, he took this as his chance to “let loose and build something different,” and he knocked it out of the park with his dual map setup showing a slideshow of Mexico’s map. Take a look; we promise you’ll like it just as much as we did.
For their excellent project, Gustavo will receive a custom commissioned map from Overview.Design, The Guide to Map Design, and Mapbox swag.
Third Place — It’s a tie!
Kevin McGovern
Kevin’s World Cup Team Journeys visualization made great use of two popular open source tools from Uber’s data viz team, deck.gl and react-map-gl. We love that Kevin used open data and a python notebook to highlight “just how intense [tournament] travel can be,” showing how far teams traveled for World Cup qualifying. Explore his map to find out more about how he built it!
Jonathan Witcoski
Jonathan Witcoski is documenting how he’s been learning to build with Mapbox & Unity day-by-day, and his used World Map Cup to show his progress. He created a detailed walkthrough of how to make a rolling ball game with a world cup inspired design is a terrific culmination of skills. Take a look at his thorough documentation to build your own or start building with our Maps for Unity SDK.
Both Kevin and Jonathan will take home a custom topographic map form Overview Design, Mapbox Swag, and of course, bragging rights.
Thanks to everyone who participated in our World Map Cup! Want your chance to compete to win? Join the Explore Outdoor competition for August — Week 1 is already out, but there’s still time to sign up!
And the winners are… was originally published in Points of interest on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.