Fiberoptics in Future World

[Andrew015]

I have always been facinated with the fiberoptic walkways that can be found outside of innoventions in Future World.

In fact, this fascination led to me and my father constructing our own. We managed to pour four of our own 16 x 16 inch fiberoptic bricks that line the pond I put in for my Mom's birthday. They came out perfectly. The neighbors are fascinated. Heck, so am I, as I didn't think it would work.

The idea is really very simple, but you have to give Disney a lot of credit for coming up with it. I don't think there is a person who goes through future world who doesn't stop in amazement the first time they see these bricks... young and old.

I also have to give my Dad credit for helping in the "Imagineering" stages of the brick project. Now we've got a little piece of future world in our own front yard.

 

[disneytim]

Can you share what you did to make it work?

 

[KathyTX]

I'm also fascinated by the fiberoptic walkway. I love to watch little kids chasing the lights at park closing time!

I'd love to hear how you accomplished this- How did you hold the fiber when you were pouring the bricks? Where's your light source? Could we see photos?

Truly, I'd LOVE to hear how you did it!

 

[Andrew015]

I'd be happy to share how we accomplished this.

It would be best accompanied by pics of the form that we built to make the bricks. Unfortunately, I'm away at college and don't have any. Next time I get home, I'll be sure to take some pictures of the bricks and the form we used to pour them.

Anyways, we started out by taking a piece of wood that had a smooth, plasticy finish on one side (so the concrete would slide off smoothly after the brick was poured). We nailed in the sides of the form that were approximately one and a half inches in height. Thus, we get a brick that is 16 x 16 x 1.5 inches. Now for the tricky part. Before we poured the concrete, we had to take our fiberoptic wire and splice the end of it to expose the individual strands inside. There were 50 strands per wire (or at least with the kind we used... the style of fiberoptic wire is called endlight, where just the tip of the wire lights up) We then drilled 50 tiny holes into the form equally spaced out. I honestly do not recall the size of the drillbit we used, but it was the smallest bit that Home Depot carried. I should remember what size it was, seeing we broke about 5 of them in the process and had to make multiple trips. Once we had our holes drilled, we were able to pull the exposed strands through each hole of the form. We then poured our concrete, let it set for about a halfhour, and slid it out of the form. Once the brick was taken out of the form, we used a utility knife to cut the fiberoptic strands flush with the concrete surface. And that's our fiberoptic brick in a nutshell. As for the lightsource, my dad ordered a lightsource specifically made for fiberoptics. It has a colorwheel built into the lightsource, which means the brick will change colors just like you see in Epcot.

If anyone is interested in this process, I would be happy to send some more detailed how-to instructions and some pictures, as I know this isn't very adaquate. The whole process was a lot of trial and error, especially trying to find the right type of concrete to use (quick set sandmix).

Hope to get some pictures up very soon!

 

[Tinkbell]

Sounds really cool. Hey, what part of Ohio do you live in? You could probably charge admission for some of us Ohio Disers to see this "attraction". LOL

 

[Andrew015]

Don't put bad ideas in my head

I could definitely use the money to help pay off all of my student loans!!

By the way, I live in Timberlake, Ohio which is in Lake County... about 25 minutes east of Cleveland/

 

[Alice42]

VERY cool!!!

 

[Kala]

My SIL and Niece were at WDW 2 weeks ago and said that the fiberoptic sidewalks were not lit when they were there. As a matter of fact they said that there seemed to be just some cracked concrete where they used to be. They were really disappointed as that's one of the things we always look forward to seeing and taking pictures and videos of with the kids. Has anyone been there recently and seen them lit up? We're hoping that there was just some kind of maintenance going on.

 

[Andrew015]

Originally posted by Kala
My SIL and Niece were at WDW 2 weeks ago and said that the fiberoptic sidewalks were not lit when they were there. As a matter of fact they said that there seemed to be just some cracked concrete where they used to be. They were really disappointed as that's one of the things we always look forward to seeing and taking pictures and videos of with the kids. Has anyone been there recently and seen them lit up? We're hoping that there was just some kind of maintenance going on.

Tell me this isn't so!!!

Maybe my fiberoptic bricks will be more of a rarity than I thought!