Kinetics in West Seattle with Jason Rudolph

Remember back before Chuck E. Cheese? Showbiz Pizza Place was the original family fun spot, with the animatronic performing band…Rock-a-fire Explosion, powered by ’70s technology.

This “show”, or set of pneumatic-driven band members (originally designed and manufactured by Creative Engineering) are being rebuilt and upgraded by Jason Rudolph in West Seattle, currently at a large, vacant retail space (formerly Petco). Jason is looking at new ways to control the band and to create new shows. First step is to rehabilitate the vintage band members.

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Under-the-latex, all moving parts are actuated with compressed air-powered cylinders.

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This is essentially a communications hub, which handles all of the switching for the pneumatic controls-currently a Tivo is sending the show controls’ timing through a bundle of wires with data that tells the band how to move and when to move, so that it syncs with the music.

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Watch the Rock-afire Explosion documentary film trailer.

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