“Automationgivesussecurity,
it relieves thepressureonusand
givesus the freedom to focuson
our performanceon thestage.”
AndreasEhrlich
The interview
withAndreasandChrisEhrlich
tookplaceon29 January2015at thePorsche
Arena inStuttgart, Germany.
ChrisEhrlich:
Of course,magiciansstill usegoodold-fashioned
sleight of hand. But if youwant toamaze thousandsof people,
it’ssimplyno longer enough. You reallyneed tooffermore. And
that’sonlypossiblebymakingextensiveuseof technology.Strictly
speaking,whatwedo ishighlyspecialisedmachinebuilding.One
of our latest illusions, teleportation, isaperfect exampleof this.
Whenweweredeveloping this illusion,wecouldn’t justwalk into
anengineeringfirmandsay thatweneededa teleporter. This is
ahighlyspecialised, individual solution thathad tobedeveloped
fromscratch.
Wheredoyouuseautomationandhowdoyoubenefit
from thehigh level of technical back-up?
ChrisEhrlich:
Obviouslywe can’t giveaway thesecretsbehind
our illusions.However, one technical innovationwe can tell you
about is thecentral roll-upprojectionscreen thatwehaveover the
stage,which isdrivenusingaFestoservomotor.Theadvantageof
this is that it canbemoved toanyposition. Thismeans thatwe
havemaximumflexibilitydespite the infrastructure that changes
fromvenue tovenue. The roll-upprojectionscreen is controlled
byour ownPLCstructure,whichoperates the Festo controller.
AndreasEhrlich:
Weused tousea turnkeystandardsolution,
but itwasn’t reliableenough for our requirements. Thescreen
didn’tmovepreciselyenough to the requiredpositionand the
projected image thereforedidn’talwaysfiton thescreen.With
1.2015
trends inautomation
Inspiration
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