Approach

Radio Frequency (RF) technology has been used for a long time in Disney theme parks, and for many purposes, ranging from ride and parade float control systems to laundry services. Disney has since expanded its use of these technologies to accomplish far most sophisticated tasks; this includes RF communications systems that could, for example, allow the tracking of guests in parks or cruise ships, provide customized interactions for guests at specific attractions, and even allow guests to unlock their hotel room doors. Such unprecedented integration of wireless technologies was an ambitious undertaking for a company that had left the core guest experience at its parks more or less unchanged since it discontinued the use of pay-per-ride ticket books in the eighties.

Disney relies on external engineering vendors to develop advanced technology products. Synapse Product Development is a product development company with a track record of RF technology development and specific expertise in wearable electronics.

During my time at Synapse, I was primarily responsible for the scoping, design, and tuning of custom RF technology deployments at Disney theme parks, restaurants, resorts, and cruise lines. This meant spending time with Disney Imagineers and creatives to parse their requests – usually expressed in terms of the nature of a target guest experience – into detailed engineering specifications for equipment type, location, and installation in order to achieve a particular effect.

I oversaw the entire process of deployments – from initial concept and design, installation and final tuning, to documentation and handoff – from start to finish in many disparate locations on multiple properties to suit a wide variety of use cases. The final result is thousands of pieces of custom equipment deployed throughout Disney property that are completely hidden from view – and far more that are customer-facing – all operating to give guests experiences (and deliver data to Disney) in an unparalleled fashion.

The scope and quantity of documentation necessary for the installations was extensive: for technical audiences, engineering blueprints were required that identified precise hardware locations, antenna orientation, material constraints, and mounting substrate callouts; for non-technical audiences, I produced preliminary design recommendations that provided approximate device locations, specified the amount of hardware, and gave graphical renderings of the installation to help Disney employees and their vendors to understand the nature and extent of the installation. Some of the material was even used for marketing.

There existed a number of issues in the field that required the design of additional custom hardware to facilitate deployments, such as test systems, brackets, antenna accessories, RF wave guides, and custom weatherproof enclosures; as the only mechanical engineer on the deployment team, I would be responsible for the design, fabrication, and testing of this hardware. These assemblies made use of plastics, sheet metal, and a variety finishing treatments to achieve functional and aesthetic goals and usually had to be completed within very limited turnaround times.

Once hardware was deployed, the deployment team was also responsible for ongoing support. This included everything from troubleshooting the many embedded Linux systems on the Disney enterprise network to ongoing hardware maintenance, monitoring, and upgrades. On several occasions, I met with hardware manufacturers to discuss, for example, mechanical production and assembly issues that had downstream effects on deployment, as well as work toward developing solutions to those problems.

The technical problems were always fun to take on; however, considering the variegated and sometimes erratic nature of the tasks required to perform this particular brand of deployment engineering, I realize now that some of the most valuable knowledge I took away from my time with Synapse is centered on (often overlooked) soft skills, such as how to

• Interact with clients; especially how to parse requests, set expectations of timing or performance, or inform the client of the occasional undesirable result
• Take good meeting notes, plan projects, allocate talent, and other basic project management skills
• Coordinate with teams of contractors and vendors to ensure that more than just our portion of the work is successful and the client is fully satisfied with the outcome

I really enjoyed my time at Synapse and even had the chance to work with this company again after I completed graduate school when they requested my engineering consulting services.