As homage to the Mayan god of wind, storm, and fire, Hurakan, is a 40′ tall sculpture that has tamed a tornado of blazing propane. An array of digitally controlled solenoids triggered the propane bursts and injected firework powders, changing the color of the flame.
The control station had e-stop safety switch as well as manual control over the propane. Vintage arcade buttons were wires to control the various solenoids.
In remote-control mode, and iPad could remotely control the solenoids (while an operator was still at the safety station) thus allowing the crowd to interact with the sculpture at the edge of the safety perimeter.
The iPad application was written by Pat Barry and was fully functional with JoeJoe Martin’s solenoid circuitry just two weeks after the iPad was originally released to the public.
