How Dancing Fountains Work | The Henry Ford's Innovation Nation

Dancing takes all kinds of forms. There's ballroom, disco, you might have guessed I prefer salsa. One type of dancing that is rare except in the show open of friends is fountain dancing. But there's one innovator who has taken a stance by creating fountains that dance. Here's Ali Ward to explain. Stop for a moment to watch these fountains and the world falls away. There is beauty and choreography and grace in them, made manifest by the less visible mechanisms of engineering and science and design. From iconic fountains in Las Vegas to watery wonder in New York to incredible iterations in Dubai and China, all are the brainchild of this man, Mark Fuller. He is the chief excellence officer at his company called WET, located near Los Angeles. I met up with him on the grassy grounds of the WET campus. Now, what is this here? Well, we can't sit here, Ali, without drawing, so I hope you brought a pencil. If not, I have some up here. This is like our student union. Everybody gathers all our different disciplines, but if you're halfway through a ham sandwich and you have a great idea, you won't lose it. The public sees the visible magic of the fountains, but there are countless hidden underpinnings. How much precision is happening between the nozzles, the computer, the water pressure, the lights? You know, people think about, well, we've got these underwater, we can call them robots, and they're moving around. Okay, that's not what we want to do. It's not about speed, it's about grace. We want a beautiful arc and maybe a pirouette, and then we want it to go slow, and then we want it to fool around over here with the music, and we want it to hear the music and go back. What kind of skill sets are important to have when you're making creations like this? If you look around here, this is like theater. We have performers and actresses, we have textile designers, we have optical engineers, we have embedded software developers, we have concrete specialists, we have wood carvers, we have animators, and it's that integration of all those talents towards one goal, which is technically excellent. Like theater, he says, the result has to be artistically inspiring to everybody who watches it, because the fountains are designed to bring people together. We find intrigue for the mind, for the heart, and the spirit in the real things, the basic things, starting with water, tinker with fire, the wind, light, sound, real stuff. I wanted to see the real stuff up close. Okay, so Mark, we're in a testing facility. What are you gonna show me? I'm gonna show you plain old water. Okay. Now I'm gonna show you water like you've never seen it before. Okay. I dare you. Please, hands up. It's hot and cold at the same time. Yes, this is real water and fire, and no, do not try this at home. I just don't even understand what I'm looking at, but I love it.