The Tower Lights have become a University of Idaho tradition. The light spectacle shown over the Tower happened during homecoming and will happen again during UIdaho Bound.
Robert Rinker, faculty advisor for the computer science department, oversees the project. The Tower Lights display itself is put on by the Computer Science Club also know as Association of Computing Machinery (ACM).
The event has been a running tradition since 2010 when the first Tower Lights display took place.
“All the equipment was developed by ACM originally and designed by former graduate students,” Rinker said the biggest change over the years has been going wireless.
Within the tower on the southern side, the windows will have high powered LED lights mounted on 1-by-2 plank of wood.
“A low piece of tech,” Rinker said. “Once connected, the tower becomes a ten story light display.”
Each of the lights are connected to a wire that runs through the building and connects to a master computer in the basement.
There it is controlled wirelessly from a laptop that has all the programs ready to go for the event, Rinker said.
“We run wires down the hall to a laptop on each floor, and that connect to a master laptop. Eventually over time we’ve gotten to work wirelessly which works much better,” he said.
Having the ability to work the show from the laptop has given the technicians more freedom to create bigger and better shows over the years.
In just a few hours, the ACM team goes and sets up the day prior to the event, placing the lights in the rooms and connecting the wiring, Rinker said.
Once set up, the day of the event is when the magic happens.
“Friday evening we set up the controller and all that stuff, and the preliminary set up. Only takes a couple hours,” Rinker said.
Since this is the fifth year running, the ACM team has the process perfected. The event has become a favorite that is also put on for UIdaho Bound in the spring.
Justin Johnson
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