Extreme IT: The Tech Behind The Fireworks

Source: Spiceworks, Aaron W.
Photo: Bidgee

As an IT professional, you likely have a firm grasp on how tech works at both your company and within your industry. But how much do you know about IT in other businesses and trades? In our series called Extreme IT, we highlight both tech and IT pros in interesting or unusual industries.

As the bangs, booms, and blasts of a professional fireworks display shoot across the sky, it’s hard not to be captivated — twisting reds intertwining with glorious green and boisterous blues in a mesmerizing performance. But as you look skyward, you might not realize just how much technology is behind those well-placed explosions.

“It seems like there’s more technology involved in our work every year,” says Jason Love, the operations director at Illumination Fireworks which works with the City of Houston, the University of Texas at Austin, JC Penny, and Emirates Airlines among others.

Some of that technology includes the basic blocking and tackling required for any contemporary enterprise. “We use computers to control our inventory,” Love tells Spiceworks, noting that their inventory solutions allow them to see what they have in stock and see what they might need to purchase before a show. “That system feeds into our show-design software, so we can design a show with different effects and see if we have what we need in stock. We can also go the other way round and see what we have in stock and design a show from there.”

####Beyond the bottle rocket: Designing a professional fireworks display
A fireworks show clearly depends on visual impact, and somebody had to think through the way it looks. But designing it goes deeper than that, according to Love.

Depending on the length of the event, designers can spend anywhere from under an hour to days in order to plot and choreograph a show. And they’ll do this with simulation software, specially designed to allow them to visualize how explosions will look and when they’ll go off. The software also allows the team to insert an MP3, so they can time a show to a song and suss everything out to the very last down beat.

“The software allows you to watch a whole, simulated show or zoom into a tenth of a second to really nail the timing of a specific effect,” Love says. Firework companies will often use these simulations to show clients what a given show will look like.

“We’re currently waiting to upgrade to the next-generation design software, which will let us upload 3D images from Google Earth to help us better design our shows,” Love explains with no small bit of excitement. “Alternatively, we could upload 3D images of a sports stadium to really map out where things will go and what it will look like.”

So, what kind of hardware does it take to run this kind of software?

“The new 3D software we’ll be transferring to soon will probably need more horsepower, but right now our software isn’t as computationally demanding as you might imagine,” Love says. “Modern Windows 10 machines run most of our stuff just fine,” he continues. “Besides, a lot of our tools like Google Earth, which we use to scout locations out, are cloud-based.”

####Setting the rocket’s red glare into motion
But the technology doesn’t stop with the design software and PCs: Love and his crew still have to orchestrate the show itself.

To do that, they’ll use a computerized firing system. “We have a few different firing systems, which are designed for different shows,” Love says. “They range from the manual push button rigs for smaller shows, where you’ll listen to an MP3 that tells you when to hit the button, and go on up to a full GPS system, which features one hundredth of a second accuracy. Those kinds of rigs also feature hundreds of fire positions shooting thousands or even tens of thousands of effects.”

And when one show is over and they have to buy more supplies for the next one?

“In house, we’ve designed some inventory software that’s based on the Salesforce platform and it’s called Cheetah,” Love says. “That allows us to keep track of all of our equipment from the fireworks to the racks to the shooting systems to the fire extinguisher. … we’re also able to put in orders through the app when we need more equipment.”

It just goes to show that even people who blow things up for a living can build things.

But Spiceworks had one last question for Love: How many people does it take to run the bigger shows?

“Your Fourth of July shows can take anywhere from two to 20 people depending on what we’re using, what class of fireworks we’ll set off, and how long the show is,” he says. “Most shows today are about 25 minutes. Back in the ‘80s, the average length of a fireworks show was almost an hour. I guess our attention spans aren’t quite what they used to be.”

https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/2012126-extreme-it-the-tech-behind-the-fireworks