Thursday, October 15, 2009
Disney debuts do-it-yourself thrill ride
CNN.com: "Epcot on Wednesday opened a new attraction called 'Sum of All Thrills,' which lets kids use computer tablets to design a virtual roller coaster, bobsled track or plane ride. After inputting their designs, kids climb into a robotic carriage that uses virtual-reality technology to help them experience the ride they've created."
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23 comments:
I think that this is very cool! Designing your own ride at Disney must be some kids dreams come true. But i really wonder how the lines are affected by this. On a typical ride, more than one person/one family can go on at a time. So having one person choose the ride and go on must make the ride's line unbelievably slow, especially as the kids make important nit-picky decisions to perfect their ride. The ride specialist in the article was talking about how some roller coasters have multiple endings and the riders decide. Does this mean they poll everyone and take an average? I can't imagine giving freedom of choice to a ride with more than one person.... I'd be interested to see how the decision making process works...
one of the reasons I would love to work for disney is because they always seem to be taking steps towards being pioneers in the field of entertainent technology, and they always so successfully generate a lot of excitement and publicity because their innovations always show how their designers are really dedicated to making the wildest dreams of children come to life, which basically what disney is about. making an interactive game for children really pushes the envelope not only because the technological innovations are so mind blowing but because it gives the children the power to design and become involved in their own creation
Once again, Disney seems to be coming up with and implenting new ideas in fantastic ways. Giving people the ability to design their own rides, and be able to go ride them is a fantastic idea, and I think is really awesome. The idea of the designer about multiple endings to a coaster sounds really interesting as well, although difficult to implement. This sounds like a step in the right direction, and I think it's great that people are getting more power to be able to design and experience things they design, even if it's in a semi-real environment. I'll be interested to see exactly how they lay everything out, but overall another great idea from Disney.
Alright, time to Disney nerd it up here. For years, Disney has had a very similar ride conceit called CyberSpace Mountain in their indoor theme parks DisneyQuest. It follows a rather similar structure, where guests build a track with drag and drop pieces, then uploads it to a cylindrical ride structure that can roll the guest on the X and Z axes (rolling left/right and up/down, even to the point of being upside down). Sum of all Thrills is a significant improvement on that structure because the robotic arm enables so many more degrees of motion, plus the updated building structure incorporates physics and mathematics (even down to the speed dial listing the kJ of energy the car has at that point) to try and teach as well as entertain, which is the big point of the Innoventions booth and Epcot in general. I'm very excited for the life of this one, and while I don't think the ride design will be used to produce a full-scale attraction in the parks, it's still a fantastic Innoventions ride.
@arosenbu CyberSpace Mountain has never really had issues in the past with wait times. There are two separate lines, one for building the coaster and one for riding it. There are tons of building tables, so that's no problem, and the info for the finished ride is stored in the system, retrievable with a swipecard that the guest has been given. So the only wait you really have is to be loaded into a ride vehicle.
Like Brian has stated this really isn't too new of technology, Disney already had this attraction at DisneyQuest. When I was at DisneyQuest last it was a lot of fun and didn't take too long to get through the line. As mentioned there are various tables that allow you to create the ride and tons of rooms that simulate the ride for you. What I want to know is why they made a new one and moved it to Epcot? And, if other "rides" from DisneyQuest will be moving over to the actual parks.
But overall, I am very excited I am going to Disney over winter break and can experience this ride and the Toy Story Mania one. Toy Story is one of my favorite movies and this ride also seems like it could be a lot of fun.
It great to see that these rides and games are so interactive, and call for kids to be creative and expand their thinking into coming up with these concepts. this is only the beginning i assume, disney will expand more and more into this way of creating rides. As technology progresses, and audiences and consumers expect more from entertainment, interesting things will happen. there is so much opportunity and so many directions it could take that it will be fascinating to see where it goes.
First i want to comment- who says this ride should just be for kids? i want to ride it too because it sounds like so much fun! Employing technology to the entertainment industry, especailly in interactive ways, is a growing business, and one that is really appealing. When i read this article, i think about the ETC and how this ride seems to echo their mission. Like Brian and those below said, it is not new technology; what IS changing is the ability to be flexible with that technology. What else can you do besides roller coasters? How can it be made more realistic. That's where this is headed.
Just coming back to this one and responding to Brian A, I'm waiting for the day when they put the robot arm into a moving tracked ride vehicle. I think people would be dumbfounded by a ride experience where they feel the forward momentum, but also have the free range of rotation in multiple axes. Imagine Space Mountain with this type of vehicle; it would be incredible.
Oh Disney...They are always doing something. Anyways, yeah, this is a great idea. Allowing the user to customize their experience will really start to draw in crowds. It will allow the user to not only tailor it to their desires, but will allow them to get a different experience each time they go on the ride. I skimmed through the other people's comments, and realized that although Disney has had other attractions similar to this one, it sounds like this is the first time in which you can individually tailor your full experience.
I don't really see how this ride will encourage kids to want to excel in math, but I can see it as a pushing off point for them to explore engineering options and other mechanical projects.
i think that this is rill cool that you get to design your owen ride and then get to ride on a simulation of it. i have herd of things like this and hear that they are not that good but i am shure that if disney is doing this that it is great and that they have worked out all of the problems and made it great. when i when to disney a few years ago they had tis part of epcot closed and i was wondering what they where going to put there and i think that this is a great thing i would like to go and experience it and see it in person.
I'm fairly certain that this is nothing very new. I could be wrong, but there is something that sounds very similar to this at SportsWorks at the Carnegie Science Center here in Pittsburgh. They have little "pods" there that simulate a rollercoaster or monster truck, and I am fairly certain they give the rider an option of what to experience. At the same time, this is quite a development at the theme park level, but it seems like it would be such a long wait that it may not be worth it. I'm interested to see how interactivity develops at theme parks in the future, in rides that are unsimulated.
I think that not only is this really cool, but its a fun way to have kids learn math and science. its also interesting how they have started to make rides interactive. i think that adds to the overall experience at a theme park. i never knew that they had indoor disney parks. thats convenient.
Having just gotten back from Disney World I can attest to the "cool factor" of this attraction. I didn't have the chance to go on it (the line was pretty long), but from what I saw and talked to the cast members about all sounded really interesting.
Disney tried this many years ago at their Disney Quest interactive theme park. It is called "CyberSpace Mountain" and employs similar ideas...except it's not on a cool robotic arm and was limited to roller coasters. The new technology shown in "Sum of all Thrills" has been popping up in other attractions as well. Soarin' is another case where they get the guests in the midst of a hang glider ride over California. In this attraction you sit on a "hang glider" and the motion of the apparatus as well as the moving air and scents all make you feel like you are there.
The new attraction seems to be the combination of many technologies from earlier ventures.
This seems like such a cool idea! Not only getting kids more involved with math and science through fun, but letting them feel empowered by said subjects! This will also help kids develop their visual-spacial sense, and understand basic laws of physics. The other cool part about it is that it can appeal to people of all ages. I REALLY want to go see this ride! Another part that makes this ride more accessible is that people who would otherwise be afraid of roller coasters could enjoy them, knowing THEY were in control of the design, and only taking it as far as they want to go.
I am all for the concept of interactive rides and experiences, in fact, I hope that the technology makes its way into the theatrical community and is put to good use. The issue that I have with the technology as it is currently being use by Disney is that it encourages individualism and brings people inside. In my opinion, the point of these types of rides is to get outside and create a shared experience with the other riders. It seems to me that this form of interactivity is an individual creating a ride and then riding it. If the interactivity was based more on group dynamics and the group's interaction with the piece. I believe that the type of interactivity that we are coming across in the rides is more along the lines of video games than a performance. I hope this technology will jump the gap.
More than ever we are a generation of customization. The 21st century seems to be all about choice. While my Mother and aunts applied to between 1 and 3 schools it is common now days for seniors to apply to upwards of 7 or 8 schools. Look at any series of television commercials and the theme seems to be your choices. After all the Burger King motto is "Have it your way!'. Disney has always been a smart business player, and capitalizing on this trend is a natural move.
I really like that the idea of Disney giving all the creativity back to the children that they are entertaining at their parks. Though this may not be new technology, as "virtual reality" rides have existed for awhile, the mere fact that the kids get to pick and choose the ride to their own liking is wonderful. Everyone has their own preferences, whether you like lots of loops or drops or none at all, and this little bit of control must make the ride all the more satisfying for them. Really, you're starting off designers and programmers at an early age by stimulating their interest as a theme park. How novel, parents!
This is such an awesome idea! I think that it will be awesome for getting kids interested in math and science, and it will be a lot of fun. It's also a great idea because people with many different tastes can enjoy the same ride. For example, people who like roller coasters but don't like going upside down can enjoy the same ride as someone who loves going upside down. I think that this will make kids really curious about how all this stuff works, and it will make them research it more. I know that math and science can be really boring, and I hope that this will make kids more interested.
While I find this very cool and I recognize that this is a creative advancement for the entertainment industry, half of the fun for me going on a roller coaster is that you don't know what is going to happen. Perhaps if when you design the roller coaster for yourself you could select adjectives or broad concepts and ideas that you want to occur, but if it's all laid out for myself BY myself, it seems like it would have lost the thrill.
It's net that they're making one of these at Epcot but, since they already have a theme park that's virtual reality, I would just prefer to go there instead if I was going to go. Although it would be a lot safer to do everything as virtual reality, It would seem that theme parks may lose some of their attraction due to the new feel that one would get walking through the park where they were used to walking around huge rides which definitely gives seems like the core of the feeling of grandeur that they have.
I am all for more virtual reality rides, but didn't Disney already do a ride like this? For some reason, I remember back when I was in Middle school seeing something on TV about how Disney now had virtual roller coasters. Now if memory serves, the technology has come a long way and seems more realistic since the setup I'm remember was more of a pod of sorts set into a multi-axis holder that spun, tilted, and jostled the pod. I do however remember there being some kind of "design your own coaster" aspect to the attraction though, so while I find the new technology to be an interesting idea, I'm a little disappointed that it feels like Disney may have just re-packaged an already existing ride with some upgraded tech, which I'm fine with, just calling it new annoys me some.
That all being said, the new Toy Story Mania ride sounds like it's a direct rip off/copy of the already existing Buzz Light Year ride and the now somewhat famous Men In Black ride at Universal. I get that these two rides are some of the most successful rides to date, but just improving or changing the approach doesn't make the idea seem to warrant a "new idea" label. I think these kinds of rides are awesome, and the more of them, the shorter the lines, but just say you're following up on an already existing and successful idea, not that you're doing something new.
This idea, while interesting, seems a little bit beside the point. While I love the idea of making my own roller coaster and designing it, it seems a little bit like the YouTube of rollercoasters-- sure original content that I make myself is interesting, but there's a reason we have roller coaster designers-- because they're good at what they do. I know I wouldn't be very good at designing a ride, because I don't know what I'm doing.
Also, this seems risky in terms of safety. If i just go up to the screen and draw jagged squiggles, am I going to come out with the worst cast of whiplash known to man?
Oh Disney, how you never cease to amaze me. I would love to read everyone's comments but time is not my friend, so I'm sorry if I'm redundant. Disney can sometimes be a douchebag when it comes to creativity, to put it so bluntly, especially the Disney TV branch, because they produce cheap television and knockoff classic movies. But when it comes to the attractions at Disneyland (I speak for the California Disneyland), I am insanely pleased. Most of you have probably not been to California Adventure (aka the place I LIVE ever summer), but it's INSANELY AWESOME. It's not necessarily Disney related in a lot of ways, although the Toy Story Mania ride they were discussing in the article is AMAZING!!! It's SO MUCH FUN! The people over there have been designing that park since I was about 6 years old, probably before that. I remember when they started building. Now, they've realized their direction was incorrect, and they are REBUILDING, and taking a completely different turn. Their commitment and dedication to their work really really shows when you go there, and I am so excited about this attraction at epcot. Although I am for real rollercoasters, (if you can do something for realsies, why simulate it?) it is really inspiring as an artist to see them taking things in a new and innovative direction, and fulfilling childhood dreams (GO RANDY PAUSCHE!)
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