The Northwood Friends Show combines animatronic puppets with multimedia animation. Source: MSP MagThe Great Wolf Lodge resort chain has been installing complicated animatronic puppet shows in recent years, driven by PC-based control technology. The shows feature resort mascots, The Northwoods Friends, in a multimedia, layered-animation animatronic and video theater, which requires careful automation control and audio-visual (AV) choreography.

To make the animatronic shows possible, Great Wolf Lodge hired LA ProPoint, a California-based company that has completed AV and animatronic projects for Disney, Cirque du Soleil and museums, among others. Each Northwood Friends theater runs on a Beckhoff Automation CP6706 Panel PC-based control platform, which features a 1.46 GHz Intel Atom processor running Windows Control and Automation Technology (TwinCAT) 3 software.

TwinCAT 3 executes control over all AV equipment, including three projectors, a Blue-ray player, high-end sound mixer and BrightSign media players, as well as the animatronics, which are operated with stepper motors. TwinCAT 3 software for Great Wolf Lodge theater installations includes PLC/NC and PTP control libraries, PLC HMI for visualization and the TCP/IP communication library. TwinCAT 3 programming was completed with structured text.

Great Wolf Lodge hopes that guest families will enjoy the additional attraction, in addition to its signature indoor waterparks. Read the original report on the InPark Magazine website.