Let’s get this out of the way first: I’m a Disney fanatic. I’m a fan of the films, the cartoons and the theme parks. Growing up in Georgia, the theme parks were a fairly accessible summer destination. Every few years, my family would pack up the car and make the eight-hour drive down to Orlando, Florida. One attraction I loved as a kid was The Enchanted Tiki Room. For the uninitiated, the attraction is a round theater. The performers consist of tropical birds, exotic flowers and Tiki totems. And all of these performers worked on a technology that serves as the foundation for many classic Disney attractions: Audio-Animatronics.

The story behind audio-animatronics dates back to Walt Disney himself. The story goes that Disney purchased a mechanical bird toy on a trip and got the idea that he could create three-dimensional characters using an automated, mechanical technique. He would use these figures to tell stories within attractions. He and his team of engineers — dubbed Imagineers in the Disney tradition — began to experiment with ways to build automated puppets. After some early successes with pneumatic and hydraulic figures, the Imagineers came up with the idea for Audio-Animatronics.

The Imagineers recorded instructions for each audio-animatronic figure on magnetic tape. When fed through a reading device, the signals on the magnetic tape would cause solenoids to activate. In this case, the solenoids were transducers that changed electrical energy into linear movement. Here’s how they work — these solenoids consisted of a wire coiled around a piston or slug. When electricity runs through the wire, the system creates a magnetic field — it’s a special type of electromagnet. A spring holds the plug in place unless the magnetic field overcomes the spring’s tension strength, at which point the piston moves outward for a push solenoid or inward for a pull solenoid. The magnetic tape the Imagineers created would control the signals sent to the solenoids.

By using these solenoids, the Imagineers created puppets with basic motion capability. A single figure might require hundreds of solenoids to carry off convincing animation and programming a figure may take several hours for just a few moments of motion. But using this technique, Disney brought to life his dream of creating a three-dimensional animated experience.

The first attraction at Disneyland to feature Audio-Animatronics was The Enchanted Tiki Room. Disney World has its own version of this attraction. Several years ago, Disney overhauled the attraction and inserted Zazu and Iago, characters from The Lion King and Aladdin, into the story. In January 2011, a fire broke out in the attic space of the attraction. No one was hurt but the Iago figure was badly damaged in the fire. Disney closed the attraction to make repairs. It recently reopened and now is an abbreviated version of the original attraction that opened in Disneyland back in 1963.

I wanted to post about the attraction because I have fond memories of going to Disney with my family back when I was a kid and I always loved The Enchanted Tiki Room. Plus, Audio-Animatronics are still a really cool technology and a great example of how engineers can find creative ways to solve problems.