Vibrating Dance Floors

By Frederick Gonzales, Barber's Point.

The Vibrating Dance Floor will probably be installed West of Ewa, first. “It feels like an earthquake,” is used in describing what the body-kinetic dance floor feels like when in operation.

"Today, I choose to create joy in my life. Whatever my external circumstances,
I choose to see all of life through joyful eyes."

The Newer Type Floors

Architect William Russell adds, “The vibrating floor throbs, it’s visceral and goes right through the body.” Looking at the main dance floor, which is located between the DJ’s concrete command centre and the stage for live performances, it’s hard to believe that this hardwood surface, which sits flush with the surrounding concrete floor would budge an inch.

It looks like any other dance floor, but once the music is turned on the floor vibrates, becoming stronger when the bass to the music gets louder. And as it has been accurately described, it does feel a little like an earthquake. It is a boon for the hard of hearing for the beat comes right up through their feet.

"Crazy World" ... Gaby Goldberg

Developed by Djenerate, a company that creates sound systems, the dance floor is a development of the “bodysonic” floor created for Cameron Leslie & Keith Reilly’s earlier Fabric nightclub. However this dance floor is “bigger, faster and stronger than Fabric’s floor,” says Djenerate director Luke Pepper.

Essentially the floor comprises a sandwich of 19mm-thick plywood and 20mm-thick hardwood glued together and supported above a concrete slab by timber joists and neoprene pads at 1.2m centres. Above the rubber layer are 75 panels, each 1m x 1m and with a pin in the corner which fits into a socket in the frame below.

"To A Perfect World" ... Melissa Manchester

We'll settle for this one in Kapolei

This allows the panel to move up and down, but not side to side. Screwed to the underside of each panel is a transducer — a cast metal casing that holds an electromagnetic piston which moves up and down, and transfers movement to the timber floor. Each panel is like an individual speaker and when a low frequency is introduced the cone or panel vibrates.

Aran Chadwick, director at Atelier One structural engineers, who provided advice on the floor’s design, says the main challenge of this type of floor is that with most raised floors, which is what this is, everything would be stuck down. But with a vibrating floor rigid fixings can’t be introduced. At the same time, with some 500 people jumping up and down on it, the floor had to be made safe. This is achieved by the pins which prevent horizontal movement.

On Oahu, it will take some time for them to know about regular dance floors and the benefits thereof for dancing. We will see a vibrating one built in West Oahu in ten years, - maybe.

Pub's Side Note: On the Internet, we can buy the instruments.

If she wants a date  -  Meter
If she wants an escort  -  Conductor
If you think she is picking your pocket  -  Detector
If she goes up in the air  -  Condenser
If she is slow in comprehension  -  Accelerator
If she is hungry  -  Feeder
If she has cold hands  - Heater
If she is narrow minded  -  Amplifier