Drop Tower
Exhibit: Drop Tower
Venue: Adventure Science Center
Location: Nashville, Tennessee, USA
Date: June, 2008
Client: Adventure Science Center
Contributors: Mystus (concept, design, metalwork and cabinetry, electronics, av, installation)
Visitor Experience: The visitor presses a button to initiate lifting the experiment box. At the top of the 25′ tower they press another button to drop the box and watch what happens to the experiments during 1 second of weightless freefall.
Client Requirements: Full turn-key fabrication and installation. Rail and motor brush implementation to reduce number of wires required. Wireless video transmission.
Mystus Expertise: We had done a drop tower exhibit before for the Phaeno museum in Germany but this one was to be 25′ tall and had to incorporate wireless video.
Unique Features: We used a ‘memory foam’ landing pad for a relatively gentle deceleration. The lift box and drop box were both powered through motor brushes on the guide rails. The drop box has a capacitor based power pack to smooth out voltage irregularities through the brushes and power the unit when rail power is turned off.
Project Challenges: Our biggest challenges were constructing and painting the 25 foot tall steel structure, and to develop a wireless video transmission system that didn’t suffer the usual interference problems.
