The new rollercoaster king
How do you start to design a new rollercoaster? How do you make it different and more memorable than those before it? And how do you end up doing it when you are only 27?
I’m not a fan of rollercoasters, or let me clarify, I am not a fan of riding rollercoasters.
When we go to theme parks with the kids, my wife and I are the official coat and bag stands. We hold on to everything while they go on the rides. We wave encouragingly as they scream past us. We are happy doing this.
This article gives the background to a new ride at Thorpe Park in the UK called Hyperia and how it was designed. Amazingly, the man behind it, John Burton, is only 27 years old. It charts his progress from playing the game Rollercoaster Tycoon through his degree to getting a job designing rollercoasters.
It describes how they developed and modelled it on computers and introduced a specific turn that leads to about 5 seconds of feeling weightless. It was not all smooth sailing and the ride had quite a lot of issues in it’s first few months however they appear to have worked through most of them.
It’s not convinced me to try the ride however the journey from design to delivery is well worth a read.
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