Royal Institution uses Electrosonic for £20m upgrade

The integrator's remit included two contracts as part of the major development project. One upgraded the a-v system within the lecture theatre, and the other provided the principal a-v elements in the museum, sited on three levels (design and construction under the direction of event communications).

The main wall of the museum includes a large rear-projection screen served by a projection design F20 projector showing a computer-originated programme with multi-channel sound. As visitors proceed to the lower level they see the 'Our Laboratories' show, presented on two screens either side of an atrium. This shows images of both today's laboratories at work, and reconstructions of the work carried out over two centuries using contemporary images. Projection is handled by Christie M Series projectors.

On the lower level there is a section devoted to the experimental method, 'Life in the laboratories'. A central area includes a front-projected show run from computer, using a Taxan U6232 projector. The area has five touchscreen computer-interactive displays using Dicol 19in touch monitors, three of which are in front of the Faraday Laboratory. In the laboratory a ghostly image of Michael Faraday conducting his experiments can be seen on a translucent screen.

The programme content for the a-v and most of the interactive exhibits was produced by Centre Screen of Manchester, which also produced the video content for the PDAs.

In addition to the exhibit triggers, the PDAs receive data over a Wi-Fi network. This allows visitors to interact with the projected images. When a video sequence starts the Electrosonic system tells the Hypertag server, which in turn sends the appropriate live data to the PDAs near the exhibit.