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Product ReleaseOlympics Opening Ceremony: Serapid Stage Technology Breaks All Records
On Friday, August 8, 2008, 8:08 PM EST the moment had finally come: Inside the spectacular "Bird's Nest" the floor begins to rise, floating platforms lift smoothly, hundreds of dancers, light and rhythm fill the stadium space - and the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing have officially begun. The brilliant opening has made a stunning impression before the eyes of the whole world. Which in part should be credited to the company SERAPID, with offices in Sterling Heights, Mich., a supplier of lift and linear-motion systems, well-known in the international entertainment industry. Sixty-two of SERAPID'S LinkLift 100 lifting columns elevate the stage area in the Beijing stadium, the total surface measuring 11,625 ft². The gigantic structure might well set the first world record in these games. The whole of the stage is divided into ten individual platforms, their unusual shapes following the ideas of the renowned UK-based event-designer Mark Fisher. Beneath the imposing surface, the lifting equipment does an extraordinary job. The lifting height is up to 23 feet, all ten platforms together are capable of carrying a total load of 595 tons. The platforms are independent of each other and free-standing, so the lifting column must do without the aid of external guides. Stability is accomplished by a triple-scissor mechanism ensuring a minimal lateral drift up to only five millimeters at the full height of 23 feet. These were also designed by SERAPID. The Beijing Olympic project further highlights SERAPID's repertoire of great stage installations, including among others the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa, Calif., the Walt-Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the Copenhagen Opera in Denmark and the Brighton Dome Theatre in the UK. The LinkLift has been patented and won several awards; after ten years on the market it has set a standard for lifting systems used in stage engineering. The Beijing Special Engineering and Design Institute recognized the quality and wanted to use Serapid's lift systems for the opening ceremony production. At SERAPID, there is of course some relief after the show: everything ran perfectly, not the slightest technical glitch. As company President Said Lounis puts it: "SERAPID is honored to be such a large part of the 2008 Olympics Opening Ceremony. Although the task did pose a challenge to our engineers, we tackled it with the determination of an Olympic athlete. We are very proud the Opening Ceremonies were such a huge success, and for that I must thank our Chinese partners for their trust in us, and our Serapid team for their tremendous effort to pull this together." |
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Serapid’s LinearBeam functions as a rodless linear actuator, but the similarity between it and other rodless actuators ends there.
