Special School, Special Lighting

The wide variety of lighting projects that Martin’s Australian distributor, Show Technology, is involved in is testimony to both the talents of Show Technology and the versatility of the product itself.

Witness Mudgeeraba Special School located on the Gold Coast, Australia, which recently transformed a storage room into a themed interactive multi-sensory room for handicapped children.

The aim of the room serves a number of purposes, it provides both a soothing and calming environment for the children as well as a fun teaching medium, where children are taught to use their senses through the use of lighting and sound effects all controlled by the children.

Robyn Kirkley, principal of Mudgeeraba Special School viewed similar centers and approached Multi-Image Productions to discuss her ideas.

“We met with the teaching staff and got a basic understanding of what the room was to be used for. From our initial concept it was obvious we needed some form of intelligent lighting,” explains Chris King of Multi-Image Productions (Project Coordinator and Designer). “I was after a reliable fixture that I could use for gobo projection as well as color changing. As we already have Martin products in our hire department I was keen to stay with Martin.”

The only fixture that stood out for this application was the Martin CX-2 color and pattern changer. After a brief demonstration with the client, the decision weighed favorably with the CX-2, which provide an uplifting atmosphere to the room, through gobo projection and color washes.

The client was impressed with the gobo designs and the large range of colors. The exterior design of the CX-2 also complimented the space theme. A Jem Sharky smoke machine, combined with sound effects, provides atmosphere to the space mural.

Multi-Image Productions were involved with the project from start to finish and provided all artwork and electronics for the interactive murals.

The interactive murals have been a fantastic learning tool. The children learn that by pressing a button on the mural a pre-recorded song is played. The children and staff have deemed the room a huge success and are extremely happy with the reliability of the Martin product. They are looking forward to adding other Martin products to stage 2 of the installation.