The SPACE centre in Preston recently underwent a complete refurbishment of the AV and lighting system and Lee Engineering, in conjunction with SPACE , Richard Hirstwood and Mike Ayres, Lee Engineering designed an exciting new system that brought the room firmly into the 21st century. Utilising Lumidrive and Thomas LED lighting, Sanyo Video projection, BiAmp Systems Nexia DSP, DF Solutions Idylserver multimedia server, Cue IPCue Delta system controller, Cue TouchCue LV, touchscreen , Kramer VP727 scaler / matrix video switcher, Ecler amplification, Bose speakers, Pharos LPC lighting controller and SoundBeam, we created a multi sensory, mutli environment room which is capable, at the touch of 1 button, of transforming the soft play area from the bottom of a Caribbean coral reef to the far reaches of Outer Space with multiple video and audio soundtracks plus a host bespoke lighting effects. Within the room there is also a soft play slide above which are mounted sensors that provide audio rewards for use of the slide. The top sensor triggers a sample of a firework shooting into the sky and a sensor at the bottom of the slide triggers a sample of the firework exploding with a large associated lighting chase, simulating an exploding rocket effect. A set of musical steps are also used where the higher the step attained, the higher the note played. We were also asked to provide voice activated effects and by the use of 2 microphones, 1 handheld radio mic and 1 surface mounted boundary mic, a multitude of lighting effects can be triggered simply by noise alone. Simple effects from a colour change through to moving lights tracking around the room in response to any audio input can be triggered.

The system was also designed to be remotely accessible via VPN so that we can control the system from anywhere in the world and also diagnose faults and upload software updates remotely, without the need to attend site.