High-Tech Amusement Park Keeps Special-Needs Guests Connected
Morgan's Wonderland hosts thousands of special-needs children, adults and their families. Each guest at the Austin theme park wears an RFID wristband for location tracking and to link to critical personal information, such as medical conditions and allergies.
Mon, April 04, 2011
Network World — Delivering uninterrupted wireless coverage throughout a 25-acre park wasn't easy, but it's necessary to help keep the guests at Morgan's Wonderland safe. The Austin, Texas, theme park, which just kicked off its second season, hosts thousands of special-needs children, adults and their families. Each guest wears an RFID wristband that not only tracks their location in the park but also links to critical personal information, such as medical conditions and allergies.
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"Throughout the park there are RFID readers that are positioned to provide an in-house GPS," says Brandon Zumwalt, president of Internet Contrasts, a systems integrator that partnered with Morgan's Wonderland to design and build the park's IT infrastructure. Visitors can scan their wristbands at one of the park's five kiosks and find out where a missing member of their party is, for instance, or locate a particular exhibit, or leave messages for people in their group.
The RFID system is just one element of the park's high-tech infrastructure, which includes IP video surveillance, emergency notification systems, wireless access for visitors, and a fiber network that carries a slew of voice, data and multimedia applications.
Alcatel-Lucent provided the core network infrastructure for Morgan's Wonderland, which opened its doors in April 2010. The park is the brainchild of philanthropist Gordon Hartman, who initiated the nonprofit project after realizing that most theme parks don't cater to people like his daughter Morgan who have special needs.
In its first season, more than 100,000 people visited from 47 U.S. states and 13 countries to enjoy the park's attractions, including rides, interactive exhibits, a pirate-themed island, fishing dock, and an amphitheater for concerts and events. All the amenities are designed for accessibility, so children and adults with physical and cognitive difficulties can enjoy the attractions as well as those without disabilities.
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For the IT team, one challenge was racing to design the network, even as construction was beginning at the park and building foundations were about to be poured. "We attended construction meetings, and we were sitting there elbow-to-elbow with the guy laying concrete, because he needed to know where we wanted to come out of the ground with conduit," Zumwalt recalls.
The team specified an Ethernet ring network rather than traditional hub-and-spoke configuration, based on a ring of 12 strands of fiber laid around the park. That way if there's a fiber cut or a switch needs to be taken down for maintenance, there's no interruption of service, Zumwalt says. The park's voice and data traffic -- which includes alarm systems, lighting controls, park exhibits and security cameras -- can flow around the other side of the ring.
