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Disney Launches Fireworks With Compressed Air
rtphokie writes "When Disney debuted its new firework show at Disneyland recently, they also debuted some new technology which uses compressed air to lift fireworks. This virtually eliminates the need for smoke-producing black powder and other materials at launch, significantly reducing ground-level smoke, and apparently: 'Disney is in the process of donating all seven patents associated with the new air launch technology to a non-profit organization so these patents can be licensed to other pyrotechnic providers'. Something to think about for those of us attending fireworks shows this weekend in the U.S."
... that's why compressed air launch is necessary.
needs no puny patents to create an aerial light and sound extravaganza.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
What's the fun in fireworks if there's no boom when they're shot?
this takes all the entertainment out. like my mom used to say, its not fun and games until someone loses an eye.
I forget, are we supposed to like or dislike large entertainment corporations on Mondays?
Part of the whole fireworks experience for me, and I'm sure for others, is the bombarding of the senses: sight, sound, and even smell.
Fireworks with no gunpowder smell? With no black snow falling? I have so many memories of watching the fireworks over the lake in Epcot, the clouds of smoke only visible when the fireworks explode and light up the sky.
Sounds like something I could just watch on my computer or TV, if I wanted. I'll pass. It was bad enough that they had to take away Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, now they're robbing of me of smoke filled fireworks.
In other news, Disney has decided to release all of its old movies into the public domain. Says spokeman David Franz, "We realize that the DMCA and the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act were both mistakes that hurt the American public."
I wonder what happens if the firework explodes before the air tank is empty? Burning hot shards headed 200mph in all directions?
Disney apparently didn't get the memo about patents. They are supposed to hold onto them, write out thousands more of them in much more fuzzy terms, and then sue every person/company on the face of the earth if they have a one letter resemblence.
...how long it will be before you'll be able to buy one of those compressed air launchers at rest stops in South Carolina along route 95.
The release is very much lacking in details, but the concept is interesting. A friend of mine, a "licensed pyrotechnician," spent nearly three hours at our backyard launch (that rivaled any of the local shows) preparing powder and launch lines. The result was quite an investment in the firing equipment and materials; if the compressed air mechanism is really that efficient it will be reusable. Be clean and save money.
Start using the methods and devices commercially and you prevent them from being patented, everyone can use them freely.
Patent them and donate the patents to a non-profit, and you get a huge tax write off based on the assumed commercial value of the patents.
Disney isn't really doing anyone any favors here, they patent the common potato cannon and then donate the patents to a non-profit for the tax write off.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Leave it to Disney to severely edit yet another Asian product...
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
That blows.
FLR
Disney does something environmentally sensitive, by developing this technology and then DONATING it, and it gets run into the ground. Sigh.
I imagine these are safer for the technicians as well, no? I don't know how many people are injured each year by misfired rockets, but if this technology helps at least with the launching (if not with fireworks that explode in dengerous ways _after_ launch) this is of course entirely a good thing.
The cloud that's created from launch turns into the color of the current firework going off. It just adds to the experience. So does the smell of the gunpowder. I guess that's why laser shows bore me.
I also hate the crowds at firework shows. That's another rant.
It'll reduce Bottle Rocket wars down to an aiming contest. Instead of a crap-shoot on wether or not you'll escape with your hands intact.
SCO launches new Linux Distro with Compressed Methane!
Posted by BREAL69 on Monday June 28, @1:06PM
From the ba-da-bing dept.
breal writes "When SCO deputed its new CD-Delivering service, they also deputed some new technology which uses compressed methane to launch CDs to potential customers. Darl McBride reports that it significantly reduces the cost of their distribution. We're able to use employees and users alike to deliver our product! SCO also says it has patented the technology, which they call "Gas on DEMAND" which they plan on donating the patents to many non-profit organizations.'"
Looks like something at SCO smells fishy again.
Excuse me, I don't mean to impose, but I am the ocean
The potato gun of my DREAMS!!!!!!!!
"It'll destroy you if you try to make it mean anything to anyone but yourself." - Henry Rollins
Sure, just watch Farenheit 9/11 if you wish to be told what to think...
I work at Disneyland, and this is something that has been talked about quite a bit at work. I do crowd control for Fantasmic!, which also works during the fireworks to set up standing areas and keep walkways clear. The two reasons for using compressed air was, like the article said, to reduce smoke at launch, and to reduce the noise of them being launched. The former was achieved, but the latter seems to have turned for the worse. The fireworks do make quite a noise when they launch, but they seem to make an even louder 'boom' while bursting in the air. The residents in the surrounding neighborhoods have been complaining for years about the noise these fireworks produce, and the new series 'Disney's Imagine - A Fantasy In The Sky' was supposed to calm the burning tempers. It seems to have failed. Complaining about the fireworks at Disneyland is like complaining about living next to a railroad track. They were there when you moved in, so you must have known what you were getting yourself into. Oh, and by the way, the new firework show is quite lame. The music played has nothing to do with the fireworks that are going off, nor does it seem to 'fit in.' Okay, so maybe the music from the Lion King (The Circle Of Life) fits in, as they do launch circular fireworks, but who wants to see a hallow circle? Save your time and stress from the crowd by going to a traditional park on the 4th. It will be much more fun, I promise.
One year when I was a kid, we got front row seating at a fireworks show where the launching was done from an island in a small lake. (The lake shore defined what was the "front row".) We were close enough to see the people on the ground, and the glow from the fuse as the firworks went up in the air.
It rained on the day of the 4th, and apparently some of the powder in the launch tubes got wet. Quite a few of the fireworks went off at lower altitudes than intended. One particular launch went up about ten feet, came back down, lit on the ground of the launch site, paused a moment (during which the launch crew scattered), then went off on the ground. A couple seconds later, several more tubes launched. I don't know if the crew launched them, or the "extreme-low-altitude" firework did.
Obviously, launching with compressed air is immune to this problem...
Our local company, Bartolotta's, and a number of other companies have already greatly increased the safety factor by using control panels to light off most of the fireworks. This means that for most of the fireworks, there are no people anywhere close to them during the actual show.
:)
As an aside, the Bartolotta's do the Big Bang in Milwaukee each year, at the start of Summerfest. This year there were an average of 6000 fireworks set off each minute for well over 20 minutes. It's impressive. I grew up about 3 miles from the Bartolotta grounds, where they would occasionally test fireworks. Pretty neat seeing fireworks in the middle of the winter.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
I think the note about it being years in development was correct. My boss from about 6 years ago worked on the imagineering team that was developing this technology. His portion was the miniature electronics on the projectiles that controlled the timing of the detonations.
He had some wooden balls that were used as test projectiles for the launching mechanism, and would amuse us with stories of how they'd have to seek cover for when the balls would return. A lot of his effort went into making sure that the communication between the launch tube and the projectiles was correct (apparently, the chip inside the projectile had to be told to stop listening for a few milliseconds during launch or it would see some false signals)
e to the i pi equals negative one
Lets face it. Fireworks are nothing more than mortars with a slightly mistimed fuse and a non-fragmentary casing.
Using any form of explosive to launch this is dangerous. The tubes must withstand the tremendous launch pressure. There is also the severe risk of burning ashes falling back into the cylinder complex and igniting a shell from the top down- at which point you have a buring bomb waiting for the heat to fry the launch charge.
Modern shows alleviate nearly all of these problems... but I've still witnessed a number of accidents- the most memorable (for me) was when an ash fell into a mortar array atop the Citibank tower in Indianapolis- the entire rooftop 'lit up'. Someone was severely burned, and (I believe) lived... burned over a good portion of his body.
Non-flammable launches won't eliminate (I'm going to miss the downwind smell, sigh) misfires in the tubes, but they should lower the risk during launch. It won't eliminate (or even affect) an ash falling into a shell, but at least you have less explosive contained in a small space waiting to go off.
Just my opinion, of course.
Thank you, Disney.
I wish we had more holidays like Earth Day- where people are encouraged to participate. Modern life in the US has sort of lost the old idea of holidays- where you'd interact with a community, at the very least building relationships.
How helpful are the UN's "Special Days"?
Disneyland builds/built a lot of their computer control equipment in house. My dad made a lot of it, including "Mickey's Match" - the original computer-based fireworks launch system that was programmable.
Before that, a man named Mickey (i'm not making this up, the guy's name was Mickey) physcially ran around and attempted (pretty well, from what i hear) and manually lit the fireworks to coincide with the music. Eventually, he started using electrically fired squibs. My dad's system allowed folks to pre-program sequences to launch with electrically fired squibs that would be in time with the music.
Since you didn't run to Fry's in the mid 80's to pick up a Pentium III to run Star Tours ride control (actually, Star Tours runs on a 486 for its ride control, with one redundant computer for each simulator), a ton of the hardware for ride control, gate counters, etc. have all be built by hand by the Disneyland Sound department and WED.
Many of the rides at Disneyland have my dad's name on the circuit boards in them.
Just about every system, even to this day - are Z80 based. Its simple, its cheap, and they are bulletproof.
Some of the Disneyland items he's made...
- Invented/installed the fireflys in Pirates of the Carribean
- Came up with putting the green-eyed rats at the end of Pirates as you go up back to ground level. We have a bunch of them at home and put them in windows and under the Christmas tree
- Invented the light flicker-ers that have been used at Dland for almost 30 years to make plain lightbulbs in opaque houseings look like they are flame
- Real-time population counter for Disneyland. Even went to the president's office and installed the LED display on his desk (prior to the popularization of "computer networks")
- Completed the transition of all of Disneyland's audio and attraction control tapes to solid-state ROMs for playback. They used to have rooms FULL of huge tape bins with 1" wide magtapes that would spool into a big 1" x 40" x 20" bins and be one big long lopp track - literally. This took a long time becuase back in the early 90's when they did it, they needed to send out the tapes to special subcontractors that could digitize it.
Its neet to see Disneyland, and how its starting to come back a bit after the 90's trashing by Eisner (ptooey!) now that he's been emasculated a bit. Things are getting better, and he's still making all kinds of neat stuff.
I need to get to Disneyland more often now.. i haven' been in years.. and i used to go 3 times a month when i was a kid.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
Remember the good 'ol days of aqua-net hairspray, a bag 'o potatoes, and a compressed air gun made out of PVC??? :)
I've never thought about putting fireworks in there... Thanks Disney!
spudtech
After a looking googling: "The Disney system was described in: Proceeding of the Second International Symposium on Fireworks. 1994 4", 6", and 8" shells are lifted altitude ranging from 100 feet to 2000. Using air pressure ranging from 20 psi to 120 psi. Their system "Uses an electronic ignitor assembly controlled by remote located computer to detonate the shell in the sky." No further description is provided, other then the statement; "The electronic ignitor need not be inserted in the shell until the actual use." The system is patented, perhaps the patent provides more information. Actually -- On further research. The ignition system is describe in detail in vol. 2! "This electronic ignitor uses an electrolytic capacitor for energy storage, a custom integrated circuit for programming logic and timing, and a conventional pyrotechnic squib for the ignition source." The timing resolution is reported to be; plus/minus 0.015 seconds! They system that releases the compressed air also send a launch sequence to the igniter."
I'd like to preface this by saying I really don't like the Disney Corporation. I really have to give them credit though. Developeing the technology to clean up the local air problem (seen here) caused by their nightly fireworks and then giving away the patents on the technology is amazing. Wow, I am actually impressed.
:)
All we need now if for Microsoft to give back the double click and I can die a happy man.
"Capital punishment makes the state into a murderer. Imprisonment makes the state into a gay dungeon-master"
We really need to streamline the patent, development and deployment process on this one and get these "boomless" fireworks into Iraq and Afghanistan so people can start celebrating their weddings again.
When I set up a show, I bring mortar racks, shells and a firing system. The press release was kind of sketchy but I'm assuming I would need to bring a high pressure compressor (a Home Depot 175PSI compressor is not gonna launch a 5Lb shell 1500 feet with any reasonable mortar length). I would also need hundreds of feet of high pressure tubing (A finale rack is at least 100 feet from the main guns), and lots of fast (read expensive) air solenoids. It would take forever to set up a show like that.
Then there is the safety problems, thy don't say how they ignite the time fuze and verify it's burning before a tubeload of rapidly decompressing, cooling air hits the shell. I would like to see some dud data.
For a recurring display where you can leave the equiptment and just drop shells in the same tubes every night or week, this sounds like a dream though. I just can't see it coming to a municipal 4th of july show near you any time soon though.
Disney has been under fire for some time about the quantity of pollution generated by the fireworks show. This is mostly to get the AQMD off their backs and their neighbors off their backs. I wonder if they will bother to implement this in Florida ?
Here is an excerpt from miceage.com -
Rather, this surprise move by TDA is caused primarily with some hot water the Park has gotten in with the South Coast Air Quality Management District, or AQMD for short. Readers outside of Southern California may not be familiar with a government body like the AQMD, but they've been setting policy and regulating private enterprise in a successful attempt to reduce the amount of air pollution in Orange and Los Angeles counties for decades now. The Disneyland Resort is one of the 28,000 private businesses that operates with a permit from the AQMD, and is allowed a certain number of "pollution credits" each year. A business like Disneyland can earn credits by enrolling employees in clean air commuting plans that encourage Anaheim Cast Members to carpool, ride their bikes, or take the train to work. Disneyland Cast Members can earn a dollar per day each time they "Clean Air Commute", and Disneyland occasionally raises those stakes to three dollars per day and doles out the cash in paychecks or with gift certificates to Target or other big box retailers. While Disneyland earns credits with good citizen programs like those, it also loses credits by operating polluting engines such as on the Mark Twain or the parking lot trams. And as one of the biggest single site employers in Southern California with a huge physical plant of potential pollution sources, Disneyland often walks a fine line with the AQMD. Photo courtesy of Kevin Yee This regulatory environment that Disneyland operates in is what has led to a need to reduce the amount of smoke and pollution that the nightly fireworks displays pump into the air. Although the vocal group of Anaheim neighbors that got a decent amount of media attention last year with their constant complaints about the noisy and smoky Disneyland fireworks shows haven't helped matters, it's the more definable processes the AQMD uses to measure pollution that led to this situation. In fact, the AQMD's regulations are what led Disneyland to invest several million dollars into a new pneumatic air launching system installed just north of the park this past winter. It was hoped by TDA that this cleaner and less smoky process of launching fireworks into the air from a large block of modern launch tubes dubbed "The Black Forest" by Disneyland's pyro technicians would gain the park some leeway with the AQMD inspectors. Unfortunately however, while the new launch system was effective with the standard fireworks shells that shoot straight up, it left a great deal to be desired from an artistic standpoint with some of the more unique effects. When Believe returned for the Easter Vacation period after its long winter's absence, several of the key effects that defined the Believe show simply weren't able to be accomplished with the new launch system. Most noticeably, the shooting star effect used several times during the show almost ceased to exist. Instead of the graceful arc of a shooting star sailing over the Castle that the Believe designers created, the air launch tubes could only manage an effect that was more like an errant fireworks shell fizzling towards Tomorrowland. The show's original producer Steve Davison, and the artistic professionals of the Disneyland Entertainment Department, were not at all amused at what the new environmentally friendly launch system had done with their show. And within a few weeks the tinkering that had begun on Believe during surprise showings in May had turned into a realization that a new show was needed that would satisfy
In case anyone is interested, here is the fireworks page from How Stuff Works.
They donate it to a non-profit (corporation) for licensing. This is quite different than just allowing the patents to expire (or not even getting them) and making an announcement to the public. No doubt the Disney-appointed people running the non-profit will be well paid by said non-profit.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/06/22/183920 7&mode=thread&tid=103&tid=126&tid= 99
http://ayup.co.uk/shuttup/shuttup2-0.html
Falklands Island war between the UK and Argentina - the Sheffield was sunk by an Exocet SSM whose explosive payload did not detonate. The damage (and subsequent sinking) was caused by the rocket fuel.
"No boom today. Boom tomorrow. Always boom tomorrow."
It's all fun and games until someone loses the key to the handcuffs.
If this site(bottom of page - rockets & missles) is accurate, three quarters of makeup of traditional rockets is propellant. With that removed, it would seem a lot more space is available for the stars/effects portion of the charge. It seems this could pave the way for much more sophisticated effects being created, if this type of firework is predominant in professional displays...
"It is a solemn thought: dead, the noblest man's meat is inferior to pork."
...and make an Elephant Fly!
Best Buy can have you arrested
People like Mike Hiskey at Los Alamos have been contracted by Disney to make fireworks that are based on organic molecules, and use smaller amounts of chemical salts for the color. He also works on high-nitrogen explosives, along with several others working in the specialized field of novel explosives design and synthesis.
The Sims-Dudley Dynamite Gun was used in the Spanish-American war.
1/4 Way down the page
Something people here seem to be wondering is how this system will compare in safety of preventing ground explosions of the shells (in the event of a misfire or other mishap).
Something that I hope a lot of you know about is that the shells used in many displays are becoming very sophisticated. For a couple of years now they have had microcontrollers and other electronics in the shells, which can be programmed to cause the shells to do various effects (almost to the point of a custom effect shell). Some of these effects allow for timed designs - if the shell goes off right, you now have an expanding circle of "pixels" - so of you may have seen happy faces and hearts and similar designs done with shells. The microcontrollers can be programmed right before the launch to know when to explode (time or altitude based). I wouldn't be surprised if they don't have RF-based (hopefully over a secure encrypted channel) detonation. Perhaps even in-flight reconfiguration?
Fireworks have recently become really high-tech, thanks to virtually throwaway low-power microcontrollers which are small and easily integratable into the shell. While none of this removes the possibility of a ground explosion, it does help lessen it (electrical ignition rather than timed fuse), and allows for more impressive effects and displays...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
[
Damn! So at Career Day in class when kids would bring in their parents to describe their jobs, everyone else must've just sunk their head in their hands and sobbed, "I suck!"
Seriously, how does one follow an act like that? "I adjust actuarial tables to reflect trends in home insurance claims." (Kids begin to fidget and cry.)
Note that this *doesn't* mean that anyone can use them for free. This means that for a "processing fee" you can get their permission to use the technology.
Nonprofit != public domain.
Just because they dontated them to a nonprofit organization doesn't mean that it'll be free.
Having helped with a couple fireworks shows, they are much more fun to produce than they are to watch. The job is coveted by local fire departments and small pyrotechnic companies that are hard to get into (Family connections got me in). These people strongly resist measures that make it less fun to do, even electrical ignition was scoffed at as 'button pushing'. Much cooler to be right there in the blast and flash and rain of fire. Compressed air launch? LAME!
The Disney gatlin gun uses compressed air to launch shells in the 4 to 8 inch range. At least this was the sizes they launched a few years ago when I saw the system, maybe they they go up to 10 inch but Disney doesn't shoot many 12 inch shells anyway.
They have a large several hundred horsepower air compressor at each air launch system for the lifting oumph. No nitrogen involved as it is too expensive to use in the quantities required.
The shells are plastic encased shells that are a little enlongated (not sperical like normal shells, think eggish). Inside each shell is a little electronic circuit and electric match. The circuit is engergized by a inductive coil in the base of the fiberglass launch tube. The circuit doesn't use altitude per se but a timed interval instructed in the coding pulse at the launch event.
The bulk of the show will still be fired normally as they have lots of ground level effects and lots of smaller shells that would be too numerous to fire in the air launch system unless they have made great strides in its firing rate. I shot many a show that had 100 of 3 and 4 inch shells going up per second.
Still plenty of smoke to be smelled around the lake in Epcot.
Ken
Disney-fied fireworks sound like a really bad idea. I'm a huge fan of fireworks displays, and feel it would just not be the Fourth of July without smelling a little sulfur!
I've been to most every display on The Mall in Washington, DC for over 20 years. For July 4, 1986, I went to the Statue of Liberty centennial in NY, which was the most fantastic and outrageous display I've ever seen (they somehow removed ALL the cars in lower Manhattan to accommodate the crowds); it was surreal.
I highly recommend seeing a display close up. On The Mall in DC, I love to get as close as possible to the launch site near 17th Street. The experience of HEARING each launch, and the anticipation of seeing the shell rise above you before exploding in all its glory is FANTASTIC. You know when they're coming, and have some idea of how big they will be. It's much different than watching from far away, there's no delay between the flash and the bang--and you FEEL the big bangs. There's also all kinds of sizzling, screaming, and crackling that you don't here from far away. Most of the ground level smoke comes from personal sparklers, firecrackers, and such (I expect that these things are prohibited in the magic--and antiseptic--kingdom); smoke from the official display is not a problem.
The best place to see the fireworks on The Mall in DC would be from the Washington Monument grounds, but this area is mobbed with people from early in the day. Better to go just before Showtime to the much calmer and uncrowded Constitution Gardens (enter near 20th and Constitution Ave.). People think that the trees here will obstruct the view, but they don't, because most all of the fireworks will be STRAIT UP. They don't allow people to get TOO close, but you may see the rare bit of shell fragment or ash falling, don't be alarmed as they will burn out before getting to the ground. However, please do PAY ATTENTION to what's going on around you if you're out anywhere on the Fourth.
Fireworks would not be the same with some sissy air launcher. This cleaned-up fireworks technology might be appropriate in Disneyland, but I really hope that it stays there.
They're transferring the patents to a non-profit corporation so that they may be licensed (presumably on reasonable terms) to other pyrotechnic companies.
So why doesn't Disney transfer the copyright in Song of the South to a non-profit film preservation society?
Am I alone in finding Disney's conflicting practices downright befuddling?
"We're a multi-billion dollar conglomerate buying up controlling interest in virtually every market."
"Watch 'Home on the Range,' a movie about small time businessmen getting ground under by the heel of evil corporations."
"We oppose the flow of information and ideas through copyrights expiring. 75 years isn't long enough!"
"We just made some revolutionary technology. Here, have it for free."
What corporate schizophrenia is going on here?
Happiness is relative, Based upon the way we live.
Usenet posting from 1997 http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8 &safe=off&th=9a08b22c38dabaa5&rnum=3
-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+ *** http://www.mountainfort.com *** +-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-
Disney has been using this launch method for their fireworks for years. I remember visiting disneyland in elementary school (10+ years ago) and reading about their launch method, and this is the same system they were using then. Unique, yes. Kinda cool, yes. Possibly easier to choreograph than traditional BP-launched fireworks also. But still, nothing terribly new.
Patent on compressed air launches? My dad's been doing that after pork n beans dinner since '83.
This is a wonderfull development. Seeing as what a massive source of pollution Fireworks are. The blackpowder used to launch the shells will no longer release carcinogenic sulfur-coal compounds into the air directly ONTOP of our population centers.
Everytime you watch a fireworks display, you are watching tonnes of heavy-metal and radioactive materials being peppered on your community. Making the evening not as wonderfull as Id like.
But, tell me, how is a prudent environmentalist to come out against fireworks? What will the public think about the environmentalists who want to take something generally considered joyfull and request its abolition?
on a more practical note, people need to be aware... we are capable of putting *some* amount of 'pollution' into our environment, but a wise person would not want to see so much that it adversly affects our (and nature's) health. If everyone decided "yes, we will release x,y and z of quatities a,b and c for this display and instead will stop buying/making/behaving in manner T" The trouble is we are not near this level of organization/understanding in the will of the public. Like most environmental issues that the public is directly connected to (consumption) they dont A) care or B) recognize their very real contribution to our looming problems.
So, who wants to martyr themeselves on the Anti-Fireworks Brigade?