IF YOU WATCH our YouTube show, you know we’ve been working on SunTrax, a large-scale project, for the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT). Located on a 475-acre parcel of land in Auburndale, FL that the state is turning into a technological wonderland of autonomous vehicle testing, SunTrax will be a massive-scale destination for auto manufacturers to test their self-driving vehicles (or CAV’s, Connected & Automated Vehicles, to use their official term).
The property features three testing tracks: two multi-lane entry and exit setups, and one massive 2.5-mile circle, the same size as the Daytona International Speedway! An indoor weather facility with generated rain, wind, fog and lightning will push vehicles to their environmental limits. Virtual buildings set up with moveable cargo containers will provide unlimited cityscape scenarios for a greater range of testing. Eventually, private companies will be able to lease state-of-the-art workshops to further develop their vehicles.
Where does Media 1 fit into all this? We were selected to fabricate three massive sign structures on the property.
The main Entry Sign: a double-sided 12.5-ft.-tall x 25-ft.-wide structure featuring green and purple channel letters 4 ft. tall and a ridiculous 20 in. deep, set in front of a stretched and lit white 3M Panagraphics III flex face, offset by six aluminum accent fins rising from the ground, breaking the top of the arch.
Then there is the X-Sculpture: a 31-ft.-tall purple “X” representative of crossing roads with lighted white roadway-center dashes. The entire monolith will be outlined with illuminated purple acrylic to give the X a beautiful night-time glow.
Stay tuned and to watch this footer in action, scan the QR code. Enjoy!
But the third sign? Oh Lord, the third sign… a 22-ft.-tall archway featuring 7-ft.-tall channel letters at the apex, and 25-ft.-tall accent fins on either side. The arch stretches 90 ft. across the road, allowing guests to drive under this Portal Sign. Ninety feet, people! That’s crazy!
But all that is coming later. Right now, we are only concerned with a couple of elements — namely the gigantic concrete ground footers.
After literally a year of technical drawings, engineering, approvals, revisions, more approvals, more revisions, etc… we finally got the green light to move into production!
The Entry Sign footer was fairly standard: large at 8 x 26 ft., but only 2 ft. 8 in. deep, with a massive rebar grid throughout. And with extreme — ummm, let’s call it “oversight,” FDOT inspectors, architects and engineers (aw hell, I don’t even know who they all were, but let me tell you, there were like 27 of them) turned away entire cement trucks because the contents were too thin, too thick, too something. But eventually Inspector Goldilocks showed up and said, “This one is juuust right,” and after four days, we embedded the sign bolts and poured the footer.
Onto the Portal footers. Entirely different! Two smaller outboard footers and two giant inboard footers would require four massive rebar cages that tipped the scales at 6,700 lbs. each! And each base footer had a circular top pour that would contain a cluster of huge 80-lb. bolts embedded in the concrete. One large footer pad took 25 yards of ’crete to fill up!
I’d like to tell you everything turned out perfect, but we’re still pouring concrete as I type…