It is an odd thing when one SeaWorld park does not have any coasters, while its two siblings have two each. At SeaWorld San Antonio, there is the Great White and Steel Eel. In addition, at Orlando, there is Kraken and Manta. However, the original park in San Diego does not have a single coaster. This week, it is your job to create an aquatic themed coaster for SeaWorld San Diego. SeaWorld coasters normally have some name referring to an aquatic animal, so keep that in mind. It may be of another theme however related to water such as water sports or the beach. Make sure to include the name of the coaster, the theming, special effects used, and any coaster extras (loops, corkscrews, etc).
As always, have fun and be creative. Please post by Saturday!
And then our final four will inclue Dan Babbit, David L., Anthony Murphy, and James Koehl. Congratualtions guys for making it this far in the competition!
Challenge 5 begins now!
Still, just what I heard, and I would love to see whatever you great Final Four come up with this round! Good luck!
This Suspended roller coaster will take place above a Barracuda tank and will feature the classic song “Barracuda” by Heart. The line will walk around and through the tank via tubes and learn about the large and dangerous fish. Guest will then climb stairs to the top of the tank where the station will be located. The train will look like the scaly fish with a front head that will have lights on the eyes and a tail at the end. Each seat will have speakers where you can hear the song. When everybody is buckled in, the trains will take a “plunge” into the water with a simulated splash. It will be another tube where the song will begin and the train stops. In the tube, you can see the Barracudas around you until you are launched out of the tube straight up and the roller coaster will begin with corkscrews, a double loop and plunges in and out of the tank via tubes and skimmed on top of the water.
To keep the fish and guests safe, there will be hidden safety measures including the top of the tank actually being covered so that if something falls off of the guest, it won’t hurt the fish.
First of all, since Sea World San Diego is really small for a theme park with little expansion space, so they decided to build a parking deck for more room to expand the theme park.
The front of the building is 3 large geodesic domes put together that are about 50 Feet high. The line begins in a large wherehouse type room with marine dinosaurs on exhibit as skeletons. 2 of the walls(not the geodesic dome wall or the one across from it) have information of various marine dinosaurs projected on to the wall with information. Each animal will have about 5 minutes to be projected. The projection will turn the animal around to you can get a good view of what they are like and it shows their habitat. There a 2 screens on each wall that show a 30 minute collection of 6 marine animals on each screen. Some animals include the mesosaurus, the nothosaurus, the pliopllatecarpus, the plotosaurus, the adriosaurus, and even the 50 foot long tylosaurus. After winding through this room, you walk into the presow entrence room. Here you see Four large 10 foot tall circles on the wall. At the base of each one, is a semi circle glowing red or blue with the other color saying,"Keep Back". These will open up like a air lock in a circular motion very quickly and then the sign at the bottom will say,"come in". After a group of about 20-25 people walk in, a "scientist" will walk in front of the sign on the inside of the room and the air lock type door will slam shut. The Scientist will then tell you about the facility and the tour," Welcome to the center of marine creatures of the past. Here at COMCOTP, we have studyed marine dinosaurs, as many people call them, and finally we have created a way to go back in time. We have created 4 60,000 square foot tanks to hold various creatures we have brought from long ago. We are going to give you a tour of one of out tanks in and 'open' submarine. has a beams across the submarine with a certain chemical called borachnite that repels the water so it gives you a better view. (ok, i totally made that up but it just gives it a feeling of being more futuristic and it matches with the ride better considering its a sit down B&M coaster with many slow parts). You will be guided by a remote control from a scientist. Safty harnesses will also have to be placed on incase a marine creature attacks so you can get out of there quickly. However, the chance of one attacking is 1 out of 1,000,000 so you should be alright. Now you can just step out here and enjoy the the ride." a large Plotosaurus is projected on the wall until it swims right up to you with it's mouth wide open and the the mouth opens up as one of the air lock type doors. you then walk into a hallway where if you are 54" then you can ride but if you are less than that then you have to go to the marine Dinosaur Playground which will be described after the ride. You walk down a hallway into a large room with the vehicle and loading area.
Stay tuned for Part 2 which should come either tonight of early tomorow.
And make sure you post by tomorrow, James and Dan!
(A J&S Production)
A brief history lesson- stay with me! In racing, both horse and human, a steeplechase is a race involving jumping over hedges, fences, and water hazards like shallow ponds and streams. Steeplechase Park, one of the original amusement parks at Coney Island in NYC, featured a form of this type of racing in a unique attraction that was basically a carousel horse attached to a roller coaster track, and riders raced each other over a course. There is at least one of these rides still in existance, at the Blackpool Pleasure Beach in Blackpool, England. This You-Tube video will show you what it is like
I know, it looks kind of slow and boring, but I got to ride it and it is surprisingly fun, not thrilling, but fun and unlike anything an America. For Sea World San Diego, I decided to "crank it up" about one hundred notches. Introducing:
THE SEAPLECHASE COASTER, THE FIRST FOUR-TRACK RACER IN THE WORLD
The entrance would be between Wild Artic Interaction and the Penguin Encounter,
with the actual ride located on the undeveloped area between the Mission Bay South Shores parking lot and the east side of the Sea World parking lot.
It would need this large area due to the fact that it is actually four-coasters-in-one. The entrance building, which would extend from the present park across (what appears to be) a maintenance area to the presently undeveloped area, would serve two functions- it would provide a covered queue area and would contain some of the longest aquariums in the world, featuring the fastest marine animals, such as the Marlin, Sailfish, and Tunney. There would be seperate lines for riders waiting to board the ride and visitors who didn't want to ride Seaplechase, so that both could see the fish in these unique aquariums, giving these marine speedsters a chance to show off their talents.
The coaster would consist of four parallel coaster lines, titled
"Swordfish"
"Marlin"
"Great Blue Shark"
and "Tarpon"
four of the fastest fish in the ocean. Each track and train would be a different color. Unlike the original steeplechase ride, visitors would ride in streamlined coaster cars. Each car would be painted with appropriate images of their respective fish, and each racer line would hold sixteen riders per car. Riders could choose which line to ride in, since each coaster line is a unique design and combination of features.
This would be an Intamin linear-synchronous motor-launched coaster, similar in feeling to Maverick at Cedar Point
but each coaster line would weave around each other, sometimes side-by-side and sometimes peeling off to give a feeling of confusion to the riders- who is going to win? Each track would be of identical length and have the same number and types of inversions, but would be a unique ride in itself. Each racer would reach speeds of at least 70mph, and would include multiple banked turns of between 60 and 100 degrees, 360 degree corkscrews, horseshoe rolls, and at least one heartline roll.The tracks would weave through landscape looking like undersea rock formations, giant kelp beds and aquatic creatures "watching" the racers, but would be an outdoor ride. All four lines would return to the original side-by-side alignment for the final several hundred meter race to the finish- this would be the first time that the racers would know who was in the lead, but computer control of brakes throughout the ride would randomly ensure that the "winner" would be different every time. All riders could purchase souvenir photos after the ride, but the winning car would have a special photo frame with "The Winner!" added to the photo. Riders, especially coaster fans, would be inspired to ride it multiple times, since each line would be a unique coaster design with no two lines having the same arrangement of turns, rolls, etc.
We were asked to design a water-themed roller coaster. Seaplechase is four coasters-in-one!
The loading chamber Is like a large pipe with the track in the middle and people loading from one side. The vehicles are B&M sitdown trains with 9 rows. The (totaly made up) Arches with borachnite would be placed across each row with a half arch at the front and back of the vehicle. There would be large spaces between each row so all would get good views. The ride begins taking a small dip into a dark room followed by a small (8 foot) drop while a splash is heard as you "go under water".
pt. 3 should come in a few.
the diver uses a strange gun (like sindom's laser thing from the incredibles) to trap the tylosaurus and move him out of the way. But 30 foot plioplatecarpus grabs the diver making him loose the Tylosaurus. Then, after a 50 foot drop to dodge the tylosaurus, you track splits again. One route launches you at 55mph and takes you through 2 corkscrews to dodge a tylosaurus and a loop to dodge a nothosaurus before racing into another exit.
part 6 coming soon
Premis: Seaworld has found Atlantis and they want guests to be the first to explore the site before they shut down the site and bring in scientist to see and study the area.
Seaworld has set up the first underwater rail road system that doesnt use any tunnels and has it own life support systems. The track that Seaworld has placed is a leasurly cicuit through the many ruins of Atlantis and hits all the major buildings.
Well the spirits that sank the Ancient City of Atlantis have returned! And the ride of the century turns into the ride of your life!
Queue: The queue and building will look a huge aquatium. Inside guests will walk into the middle of the aquarium with water and fish, sharks, turtles and many other type of aquatic creatures all around you. It will look like you are walking down into the bottom of the ocean. In the background you can actually start to see some ruins of the City.
Ride: The coaster will be a launch bases system indoors a la Rock N' Roller Coaster. This will help with the "noise" problem that the residents may have a problem with. During the preshow the narrator/scientist will explain to you what you see and whats going on. It will of course be taped spiel but it will sound like its live and hes actually talking to you but you dont know that at the time! ;)
The trains will look like bullet trains with the tops cut off. The will be sleek and look like they could cut through the water. The train will feature 12 rows each with 2 seats. Inside the headrest will have speakers that you will hear the narrator which will freak out at times!
The start of the ride will actually be slow and leasurly until it gets out of sight of the queue and then Atlantis takes over!
The ride abruptly stops and gets quite and then a deep bumming voice comes and ask "Why are we here disturbing Atlantis and the Spirits that lurk here" and the idiot scientists says the wrong thing and then you are the one that gets punish!
During all this you actually hear gurders and metal bending and at this stop you actually go onto the launch platform. You then go from 0-62 mph in 2.8 seconds and into its first loop. Then into series of twist and turns for about 30 seconds. Then into another stop where again the voice asks again to back up and leave and the narrator picks the wrong thing again and the voice says "So be it!".
Then another launch into a double loop! Another series of twists and turns and small hills and that last 20-45 seconds then a barrel roll. This is the last major event of the ride and then after 20-30 seconds into the end of the ride. The voice comes back and warns us about if you return then this will happen again!
During the ride show scenes light up using black light which will include ruins, rocks and even sharks and huge whales. Th inside of the ride building will be cast in dark dark blue almost black is will look like the botton of the ocean and its colors.
Anthony- Very short description of the ride, but sounds like a classic SeaWorld Attraction. Good theme and I liked the use of the song. The ride sounded like the under water version of Rock n Roller Coaster, which was a good thing!
David- Very detailed and descriptive. However, I wasn't completely sold on the theme. I get where you were going with ancient water animals, but I just didn't think the theme worked perfectly.
James- Very Creative name, loved it. Seaplechase was easily the best name. I thought the theme was great as well as the whole competition aspect. I loved it and the whole concept easily made it my favorite of the week. Congrats.
Dan- I thought using Atlantis as a theme was actually very poor. There is already Journey To Atlantis there, I wouldn't place Journey Through Atlantis at the park. The story was good, and I did enjoy the pictures!
Look for Challenge 6 to be posted soon. Elimination will occur on monday. Only two mor challenges left till we have our winner!
