Using Water as Art: Cole-Parmer Provides Lab Equipment for WET’s “Idea Playground”

If you’ve visited the Universal CityWalk in Los Angeles, the Bellagio Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, or New York’s Lincoln Center, you’ve viewed the flowing spectacles created by Cole-Parmer client Water Entertainment Technologies (WET). The WET team uses water as art, orchestrating its motion and flow, and infusing color and light to produce mouth-dropping displays that fascinate people from all over the world.

As an innovator of water technologies, WET has expanded the boundaries of what is possible in water architecture, creating fountains that spring from pavement and choreography that suggests a well-rehearsed performance. To continue to advance their artistry in elemental design, the WET team launched a new laboratory, dubbed their “Idea Playground,” in Sun Valley, California, and Cole-Parmer supplied a full menu of instruments and equipment for it.

“It is inspiring to help populate a lab that is home to such imaginative engineers, designers, and chemists,” said West Coast Area Business Development Manager Mike Gilchrist. “We supplied WET with a wide array of analytical equipment, including an atomic absorption spectrophotometer, gas chromatograph, chromatography cyclograph, refractometer, trinocular and metallurgical microscopes, recirculating chiller, and many other items.”

The Cole-Parmer team worked directly with WET’s CEO and founder, Mark Fuller, and responded quickly to meet the scheduling requirements for the build-out of the new facility. Because the lab was to serve both form and function, many items had to be customized for the best effect. Only Cole-Parmer had the ability to supply all of the diverse products required, along with the personalized service that ensured all requirements were satisfied. It helped to know the team’s efforts were contributing to the development of breakthrough artistic displays. WET’s recent water installations in Vail, Colorado, and Salt Lake City, Utah, have incorporated jets of fire.

With offices in Dubai, Beijing, Shanghai, and Singapore, WET certainly has a global presence. Yet, the Los Angeles-based Idea Playground “laboratory” is home to its cadre of developers, architects, and visionaries. This is where they create the magic that transforms the Dubai Fountain, PetroChina Headquarters, or any of their many displays into sparkling symphonies. And it is here, in the midst of their design specifications and project time lines, that a color meter, analytical balance, and glove box from Cole-Parmer help WET reach their high notes.