Picture This: Castle Dreamlights

We're happy to have a very special Guest back today. Amanda Major of mouzekateerz.com recently helped us kick off the holiday season with a look at Downtown Disney's holiday festivities. Amanda is a Disney vacationer, award winning amateur photographer and high school teacher by profession, who loves to share her Disney photographs and sharpen her grammar skills by writing about her travel experiences. You can find Amanda's WDW photographs here on facebook. Welcome back, Amanda!

Walt Disney World is a photographic sight to behold any time of year, from indiscreet Hidden Mickeys all the way up to zippy roller coasters. Holiday season around The World is simply breathtaking. When you read the numbers involved in decorating Disney World for the Christmas season, you notice two specific words over and over: thousands and millions.

Picture this...it takes 150 trips for WDW tractor-trailers to deliver fully-loaded truckloads of decorations to 24 resorts, 4 theme parks, Downtown Disney and other locations. 1,314 wreaths are hung with care, accentuated by 15 miles of garland. 300,000 yards of ribbon and bows are draped over 1,300 Christmas trees spread across the WDW property. 8.5 million lights are strung up throughout the Walt Disney World Resort. Finally, 100 percent of the lighting used for holiday décor is LED. I'll come back to LED lights in just a minute.

One of the newest traditions at the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World is not the lighting of the tree, but the lighting of Castle Dreamlights, the light display covering Cinderella Castle. Disney lighting designers use 200,000 sparkling LED lights, 500 strobes, 15 miles of cable, and 32,000 square feet of fishing net to create Castle Dreamlights. While it may seem impossible to believe, those 200,000 LED lights use about as much power as two average-sized refrigerators.

A LED (light-emitting diode) is a semiconductor light source. Introduced as a practical electronic component in 1962, early LEDs emitted low-intensity red light, but modern versions are available across the visible, ultraviolet and infrared wavelengths, with very high brightness.

LED lights are often used as replacements for aviation and automotive lighting, most specifically in brake lamps, turn signals and indicators. LEDs are useful in video displays, traffic signals, and with advanced communications technology. Infrared LEDs are also used in the remote control units of many products including televisions, appliances, and DVD players.

Today's Takeaway:
On Monday, we experimented with making our own LED lights. Let's take a closer look at this light source.

Some advantages of LED lights include
· Efficiency: LEDs emit more light per watt than incandescent light bulbs. Their efficiency is not affected by shape and size, unlike fluorescent light bulbs or tubes.
· Size: LEDs can be very small, often smaller than 2 mm, and are easily populated onto printed circuit boards.
· On/Off time: LEDs light up very quickly. A typical red indicator LED will achieve full brightness in under a microsecond. LEDs used in communications devices can have even faster response times.

Some disadvantages of LED lights are
· High initial price: LEDs are currently more expensive, price per lumen, at the initial point of purchase than most conventional lighting technologies.
· Area light source: LEDs do not approximate a “point source” of light, but rather a "lambertian" distribution. Thus LED lights are difficult to use when you need a spherical light field.

When you get back from your holiday trip to the Magic Kingdom, take a look around your home. Are you currently using any LED light sources? Remember computer monitors and remote controls utilize this technology too!

The next time you are shopping in a store like Wal-mart or Target, notice the prices of LED lights. Compare these costs to purchasing more traditional lights like incandescent bulbs, florescent light bulbs, or tubes. Which light source do you think will cost more at first? What types of lights do you think will cost more in long term use? Research the various light source technologies and create a table of cost versus efficiency.

SCHOOL SUBJECT: Science / Economics
SKILL LEVEL: Middle Grades


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