This was a somewhat unique project, which makes it all the more fun! Oklahoma City made a decision to commit a substantial portion of the river to be developed into an Olympic time trials location for crew, canoeing, whitewater and other sports. Joining the project in the early stages of developing the lighting system, the existing design was for controlling the light towers covering more than a mile of river front, on both sides of the river. The concept was to be able to control them by remote to activate any tower individually, in small groups or all of them together. Although the original plan looked good on paper, the realities required a redesign of certain aspects of the Crestron system and the DMX transmission being sent over radio tower to each of the light towers, in order for all of the systems to communicate with one another. After much time spent in re-configuring program code as well as some of the finer physical aspects, the system was ready for the mayor to stand on a barge in the middle of the river and turn everything on from an I-phone on opening day.
Then came the real challenge. The city had put numbers to a plan to set up timing towers down the South side of the river, connected by multiple fiber optic networks spanning the length of the course. Each tower contains intelligent lighting, a full audio network, hazers, compressors for starting gates, broadcast cameras for production trucks to access, security cameras, timing cameras for the time trials and two separate wireless networks. On the North side of the river the light towers were to be outfitted with Meyer steerable line array speakers so that coverage could be adjusted based on the needs of a particular event. This was another plan that had a concept, but not a complete plan. After much time in discussions and development the result was a complete package, including miles and miles of fiber optic run on both sides of the river, and under the river. All in all a challenging project, but a great opportunity to stretch technical skills for everyone involved.
Gear 