Life’s a blast for Dave
PYROTECHNIC wizard Dave Cooper loves bringing a spark or two into people’s lives.
If it explodes or lights up, then it’s his baby – so Bonfire Night on Monday is a big day for him.
The 23-year-old technician and engineer for Aardvark FX in Bristol loves creating firework displays and stage pyrotechnic special effects. The average display lasts about 12 to 15 minutes. It takes about a day to get the display designed and choreographed, using technology and experience.
If there’s music with it, we work out where we want the big bangs, for instance. Experience tells us how many seconds it takes from when a firework is launched to its actual explosion.
There is software to help. As the display time nears you need one week to prep the fireworks, waterproofing and setting them. You then need a whole day at least to put them in the ground and, after the display, about three hours to pack up and tidy away. I’m always busy as more and more events involve fireworks. In fact my favourite display was last week for a friend’s wedding. It was beautiful and seeing everyone enjoy them was really special. The rest of the time I work on pyrotechnic displays at concerts, festivals and events like that. When you see fireworks on stage, that’s down to me and my colleagues. One of my claims to fame was working with CBBC to recre■ate a volcano and show the effect it can have. I had to build a flameproof tank, fill it with propane and the CBBC presenter was put inside in a flameproof outfit. It has to be the waterfalls you see on shows such as The X Factor. They are stunning and magical. I don’t ooh and aah any more, but I still enjoy them. I love them both but I think you should stick to one or the other.
It has to be the classic end using what’s called a brocade which, with 10 or 12 shells, fills the sky with slowly falling Dave just loves lighting up lives lights. It is beautiful and everyone instinctively knows it is the end. Firework displays are part of the country’s history. I grew up with my dad doing the display in our village in Essex. He still does it today although there are no electronics involved. It’s just him lighting them all. At college, I studied lighting and sound and then did a theatre production degree at Bath Spa University. While I was there a friend (now my fiancée) introduced me to her father who owns Aardvark FX.
He asked if I knew how to do soldering. Through the college courses I had done a fair bit so I found myself working for a week to make LED suits which was weird, but great fun. After that I did more and more odd jobs for them at festivals or concerts, developing new skills. I was self-taught at electronics as part of the job and even did some electronics teaching at the University of Western England.
It all stood me in good stead for working at Aardvark permanently when I graduated. Naturally, my fiancée and I are planning a huge firework display when we get married in 2020.
Tomorrow’s Engineers Week (tomorrowsengineers.org.uk and #TEWeek18) is next week and aims to change perceptions of engineering among the young, parents and teachers. Tomorrow’s Engineers Week is led by EngineeringUK (engineeringuk.com).
Routes into this career vary depending on what you want to be – such as an electrical engineer, a maintenance engineer, an electronics engineer or an engineering operative. You might need a foundation degree, an HNC, HND, full degree, or full apprenticeship qualifications. Visit nationalcareersservice. direct.gov.uk, getingofar.gov.uk and the Institution of Engineering & Technology (theiet.org) for advice.
I had to recreate the effect of volcano for CBBC
We’ve found 41,230 jobs and training opportunities from roads and buildings to heating and food technology. At fish4jobs.co.uk there are 3,520 jobs and at gov.uk/jobsearch we found 9,577. The Institution of Engineering & Technology (engineering-jobs.theiet.org) lists 130 jobs and engineeringjobs. co.uk has 25,084. Hays (hays.co.uk) lists 2,023 jobs while ncejobs.co.uk has another 545 engineering vacancies. At getingofar.gov.uk we found 351 engineering apprenticeships.