Australian Computer Society

Visit to Victoria, June 1997

"Pillars of Fire and Water"

by Tom Worthington, President of the Australian Computer Society

16 May 1997 (last update 10 August 1997)

• Prescript: Pillars of Fire and Water
• Introduction
• School of Computing & IT, Peninsula Campus, Monash University
• ACS Victorian Branch Forum
• Conclusion
• Notes
• See also

Prescript: Pillars of Fire and Water

Being early for the appointment I stopped for a coffee at Cafe Bacis, one of the many coffee shops in the complex. The architecture and decor of the building is a cross between a casino, hotel and up-market shopping mall. Its is glittery, but not as uncomfortably overdone as the average casino.

George Nejtek is in charge of the special effects and while he claimed not to be technical, gave me a detailed tour of the computer controlled system co-ordinating lights, music, fountains and fire effects. This is a complex system and a full description would take a much longer visit.

There is a 100-metre long undulating wave of glass and fibre optics built into the ceiling of the Atrium. An automated series of 22.5 minute shows run continuously, with multi-channel digitally recorded music. The fountains are timed to the music, with "popjets" and "leapfrogs" of water. Laser light through a fibre optics system created coloured patterns in the ceiling. There are also computer controlled "cyberlights": remote controlled pan, tilt, focus and colour changing spotlights.

While the effect was stunning, for an IT person the system controlling this was more impressive. The system reminded me of warship, with a:

• Bridge: A balcony looking out into the Atrium.
• Command center: a windowless room lined with CCTV monitors, Computer equipment and operators at computer consoles.
• Deck: the Hotel Atrium at ground level, with the computer controlled music, lights and fountains, plus the fire towers outside.
• Engine room: in the basement, with computer controlled pumps for the fountains.

Under SMPTE time code control are an Image Engineering laser control system, Wet Engineering fountain control systems, Bytecraft Effects chandelier flying system and liquid nitrogen fog machines. There are 60 Cyberlights from High End Systems and 175 AR5 lights from Indean.

There is a star topology network of cabling from the control room to equipment around the building. While it might have been desirable to have all the equipment on one LAN, this wasn't possible, due to the different protocols and interfaces used by the audio, lights, valves and pumps. A patch panel in the control room fans out to the .5 km building.

One unusual feature is that two large central lasers are used. Fibre optic cabling carries the light to several computer controlled mirrors around the atrium. The lasers manufactured by Coherent are 30 W Argon and 6W Krypton, with their own computer control in separate locked room and safety interlocks. They are water cooled, generating 100 KW of waste heat and the biggest lasers I have ever seen. In the photo, the large black cables are the water cooling, the thin white cable is the fibre optic bundle.

There is a separate control and CCTV monitors for the Pillars of Fire and this is manually activated for safety reasons. There are eight 10-metre high columns at 50-metre intervals next to the Yarra River. At night fireballs shoot from the tops of the towers.

The set-up and operation is impressive and well worth a look. Also I believe that there is some sort of gaming tables in the place as well. ;-)

This web page provides a plan and then record of the trip. For previous examples see my Cambridge, or South Australian reports.

One question for this trip is:

• Can the web be used for serious educational purposes at the tertiary level?

School of Computing & IT, Peninsula Campus, Monash University

1 2 3

1. IT Building
2. Tom Worthington, Mr Davide Foote, Assoc. Prof. Sue McCemmish, Phil Steele, Mr. Tom Dennnison and Prof Don Schauder
3. Multimedia demonstration by Mr. Kai O'Yang & Dr. Des Casey

Professor Phil Steele invited me to a demonstration of educational uses of the web at School of Computing & IT Peninsula Campus, Monash University, Frankston. Phil is an Associate Professor at the Peninsula campus of Monash University, as well as Chair of the ACS Victorian Branch.

The demonstration was primarily for Professor Don Schauder, David Foot and ? from the Department of Librarianship, Archives and Records at Monash. I tagged along to see what was being done with multimedia.

The Peninsula School of Computing & IT will be offering a new subject in the summer semester (November 1997 - February 1998). Its an introduction to the World Wide Web and very sensibly they are using the web to teach it.

The course will be tough lab-style, with students each sitting at a workstation as the instructor presents. Some of the prototype web pages were demonstrated. These have a simple style with restrained use of graphics and some audio. There is provision for a chat rooms for students to keep in contact when away from the campus.

One of the issues they are grappling with are how to provide material which is interesting, but doesn't degenerate into edutainment. Are web pages for instruction like books, like recorded lectures? The answer is that they are none of these, but I suggested starting with styles based on these and then allow the format to evolve to whatever the new multimedia format will be.

What level of equipment should be assumed for the course? While students can use the on-campus labs, they are likely to want to do some work at home. If the equipment standard is selected too low they can't use some advanced web features, if too high they can't afford a computer or communications link. As an example video will not run well on a dial-in link. I suggested audio with still images, in preference to video, using something like Real Audio's multimedia option. This works well over dial-up links and in some ways is better than real video.

A major problem is the preparation of course material and training lecturers in how to use the technology. One way to do this is to bootstrap, by using the technology to train the trainers. However, it may be difficult for some in the university system to admit that they need training in how to prepare and present material.

Another problem appeared to be the lack of interchange of information about how to use the technology for education. Professor Steele had taken the initiative to invite us down to see the work, but what appeared lacking was the on-line collaboration and information.

Many of these issues are the same ones which I have been looking at for the Department of Defence and the ACS.

ACS Victorian Branch Forum

1 1 1

1. Tom Worthington presenting a certificate to Ian Dennis, with Phil Steele
2. John Reynolds, MD, David Syme & Co giving the branch forum address
3. Tom Worthington explaining he was one of the "defence bureaucrats", John Reynolds was complaining about. ;-)

Ian specialises in strategic consulting, including on outsourcing and has volunteered to prepare material on outsorcing for the ACS to provide to members.

John Reynolds, MD of David Syme & Co gave the branch forum address, with an impassioned plea for leadership in Australia. He criticised "bureaucratic Pentagon style leadership" so I had great delight in handing him my Department of Defence business card afterwards. ;-)

At the end of the evening I gave a short talk about what the ACS is doing in directing the Australian IT industry and asked members for suggestions. The example of Tasmania is a good one, where the ACS is working with the state Government, academia and industry on building the state's IT economy.

Conclusion

Notes

• Photos of Pillars of Fire & Atrium courtesy of Crown Casino.

• ACS Victorian Branch
• Ockham's Razor superhighway and education - comments, Tom Worthington, Link Mailing List, Mon, 16 Jun 1997 12:31:59 +1000
• Tom Worthington's Home Page