Astonishing, theatrical, beautiful – all describe the magical Main Fountain Garden at Longwood Gardens that people travel from all over the world to see.
On this episode of TAIT Take Over, Sonya Morris, Project Manager at TAIT, shows you what it takes to safely control the Main Fountain Garden performance using state-of-the-art technology.
This is Sonya and we’re at Longwood Gardens. Welcome to TAIT Take Over!
I am the project manager for Longwood Gardens.
TAIT is providing a communications backbone and safety system for their main fountain garden project. TAIT Navigator is the central hub for all of the peripheral systems associated with the main fountain garden shows – audio, lighting, architectural lighting.
It is the safety system for the pumps and the flame effect. We provide dead head protection to the 72 pumps in the rectangular basin, lower canal and upper canal. We provide restart protection and a number of other fault and limiting factors.
The water treatment system is separated by each tank. There are five separate systems that we are informing them of pump running status so that they can safely inject chemicals into the water and not create any hazards.
It is also interfaced with the building automation system. The building automation handles the fire alarms, the propane detectors, some water sensors but it also distributes communications to a variety of people.
TAIT Navigator also provides scheduled functions. There are certain portions of the gardens that turn on at 8am and run until 10 pm every day without any cues from the show programmers they’re just a feature of the garden.
And then there is the flame effect. The flame effect, we designed and implemented, and our flame effect controller is the governing brain of the system. There is a series of checks that have to be met before it is even allowed to turn on so that the programmers can cue the flame effect but if our system says that it is not safe, it does not fire.
So tonight is the last big event at Longwood before they resume or assume or begin their full time daily normal operations. Tonight is their fireworks and fan fair show. It’s the first firework show of six for their season.
