American Treasure Tour in Oaks, PA has recently opened an expansive museum containing approximately 100,000 square feet of static and mechanical artifacts from America’s history. From steampunk music players, to illuminated roadside signs and even the automobiles that drove by them, American Treasure Tours is quite a unique experience.
One of the challenges in opening a museum containing complex electro-mechanical items is how to manage the control of these items. ATT chose Weigl control hardware as the collections requirements became more demanding. Currently, a bank of Weigl Pro I/O’s controls over two dozen of the artifacts. Additionally, there is a ProCommander managing the back-of-house operations from fire alarm over-ride messaging to simple automated start-up and shut down sequences.
What makes this particular project unique is that rather than using a pre-defined Weigl application, American Treasure Tour simply wrote their own app for the iPad. Thanks to the Weigl open architecture and UDP messaging, simple commands could be written into a familiar consumer interface for both maintenance and timed triggers during routine tours.
With solid state playback and electrical architecture, each Weigl device runs many times a day without resets or required maintenance. “I can tell you that everyone is very pleased and impressed with the control end of things” says Seth Gammache.
The project was created by Seth Gammache and the American Treasure Tour staff and is in continuous development. A great example of using the Weigl platform to fill a need and enhance the visitor experience.