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Augmenting Amusement Rides with Telemetry
Brendan Walker 1, Holger Schnädelbach 2, Stefan Rennick Egglestone 2, Angus Clark 3,
Tuvi Orbach 4, Michael Wright 2, Kher Hui Ng 2, Andrew French 2, Tom Rodden 2, Steve
Benford 2
1Aerial,
42 Murchison
Road, London,
E10 6NB
info@aerial.fm
2Mixed Reality Laboratory,
University of Nottingham,
Wollaton Road,
Nottingham, NG8 1BB
{hms,sre,maw,khn,apf,tar,sdb}
@cs.nott.ac.uk
3Department of Computer
Science, University of Bristol,
Merchant Venturers Building,
Woodland Road, Clifton,
Bristol, BS8 1UB
clark@cs.bris.ac.uk
4Health-Smart Ltd,
Royal Free Medical
School, Rowland Hill St,
London, NW3 2PF
enquiries@health-
smart.co.uk
ABSTRACT
We present a system that uses wireless telemetry to enhance
the experience of fairground and theme park amusement rides.
Our system employs wearable technologies to capture video,
audio, heart-rate and acceleration data from riders, which are
then streamed live to large public displays and are also
recorded. This system has been embedded into a theatrical
event called Fairground: Thrill Laboratory in which riders are
first selected from a watching audience and their captured data
is subsequently presented back to this audience and discussed
by experts in medical monitoring, psychology and ride design.
Drawing on our experience of deploying the system on three
contrasting rides, during which time it was experienced by 25
riders and over 500 audience members, we reflect on how such
telemetry data can enhance amusement rides for riders and
spectators alike, both during and after the ride.
Categories and Subject Descriptors
C.2.4 [Computer-Communication Networks]:Distributed
systems – client/server, distributed applications; J.5 [Arts and
Humanities] – Performing arts
General Terms
Design
Keywords
Amusement rides, fairgrounds, theme parks, telemetry,
spectator interfaces, thrill, physiological monitoring, heart-rate,
electrocardiogram, ECG, accelerometer, wireless video and
audio.
1. INTRODUCTION
The amusement park, including the theme park and the
fairground, represents an important and historic form of
entertainment where mass participation and technological
innovation have traditionally worked closely together. The
continuing development of ever more exciting visitor
experiences within amusement parks has provided a significant
driver for many forms of entertainment technology. Whilst the
earliest amusement rides were simple manually-operated
roundabouts (or “dobbies”) [4], modern amusement rides are
becoming increasingly dependent upon substantial amounts of
computing technology. The use of digital technologies is
prominent both during the design process, where simulations of
rider experience are often employed before physical prototypes
are produced, and during the ride experience, where automated
ride control [6] and computer-controlled lighting are becoming
commonplace. In fact, one could argue that we are now
witnessing an increasing merger between the technologies of
the amusement ride and those of the computer game, most
notably with the advent of virtual reality simulation rides such
as Disney’s Aladdin, which makes use of “a high-fidelity
virtual-reality experience” to provide the experience of flying a
magic carpet through a virtual world [2].
In addition to becoming an increasing integral part of designing
and controlling amusement rides, digital technology is also
being used to augment the overall ride experience by
automatically producing souvenirs in the form of photographic
images that can subsequently be purchased by riders or their
families and friends. Indeed, larger rides now routinely use
digital cameras to capture key moments of the experience [13].
Of course, the nature of still photography means that only a
limited visual snapshot of the often much longer ride
experience can ever be captured – yet the installation of such
cameras in theme parks throughout the world provides evidence
of the substantial added value that is associated with this
strategy.
The installation of cameras on rides is just one example of a
broader strategy that has been widely applied throughout the
entertainment industry, which is the provision of entertainment
to audiences of spectators by revealing interesting, exciting and
unusual features of personal experiences. This strategy works
particularly well when such experiences involve activities in
which prospective audiences may be unlikely to take part,
perhaps because they are too dangerous or too expensive. As
examples, broadcasters provide an insight into the experience
of driving F1 racing cars by integrating live onboard-video and
telemetry feeds into their coverage of motor-sport [7], and
skydivers have documented their experience using helmet-
© ACM, 2007. This is the author’s version of the work.
It is posted here by permission of ACM for your
personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive
version was published in Proceedings of the 2007
ACM Conference on Advances in Computer
Entertainment Technology (ACE), Salzburg: ACM
Press.
mounted cameras [8]. In each case, video and audio
technologies yield an insight into thrilling individual
experiences that can then be shared and enjoyed by others.
We are interested in exploring how emerging digital
technologies, especially telemetry, can be used to extend and
augment amusement rides to allow the experience to be shared
by others and also to be retrospectively enjoyed by riders
themselves. Specifically, we argue that amusement rides can be
emotional and dramatic events with the potential to provide
significant entertainment for audiences (family members and
friends often attend without riding) and yet static photographs
cannot capture anywhere near the full richness of a rider’s
experience. We therefore turn to real-time telemetry systems to
capture a richer record of a ride. We describe the design and
initial deployment of a prototype system that captures video,
audio and physiological measurements from individual riders
before, during and after a ride. When using our system,
individual riders wear a helmet-mounted AV system, and a
jacket augmented with physiological sensors, with data from
these various sources being transmitted live over a selection of
wireless protocols to nearby public displays. Once received,
this data is processed, and can then be presented to an audience
through the use of a number of real-time visualizations or
recorded for later use. Our system has been tested on three
contrasting fairground rides as part of Fairground: Thrill
Laboratory, a series of educational and entertainment events
involving live audiences.
2. STAGING THE EVENTS
Fairground: Thrill Laboratory (F:TL) was a series of six events
that were staged in October and November 2006, on three
successive Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, and which were
hosted by the Dana Centre at the Science Museum in London.
These events were intended to provide both an educational and
an entertaining experience to a paying adult audience. F:TL
was conceived and curated by Brendan Walker at Aerial, who
was responsible for the overall event, including both its overall
theatrical structure and its artistic content. The origins of F:TL
are in his earlier work on the chromo11 project, which made
use of ethnographic and criminological techniques to develop a
taxonomy describing the psychological and sociological
components of thrill. The results of this project were published
in The Taxonomy of Thrill [5], in which Walker outlines a
method for monitoring a thrilling experience by measuring the
magnitude and rate of change in arousal and pleasure. Further
inspiration for F:TL and its telemetry system was provided by
the Punters project [11][12], which investigated the use of
physiological measurements to trigger the capture of still
images at key points in individual experiences.
2.1 The three fairground rides
Central to each event was a fairground ride, and a different ride
was chosen each week. Each ride was intended to provide a
distinctive kind of thrilling experience, and an overview of each
is provided below.
The Miami Trip: This was chosen to provide a thrilling but
pleasurable experience, and features a design which aims to
encourage interaction between riders and spectators. It consists
of a horizontal bench of 16 seats, which is slung between two
powered, synchronized rotating arms, one at either end. This
bench rotates in a circle, and always moves in a vertical plane.
The ride operator expertly controls speed and direction, which
can be modified to provide a wide variation of experiences. The
bench is arranged so that the riders face any spectators and the
success of the Miami Trip lies in the close proximity created
between these two groups. The ride that was used in F:TL is
shown in Figure 1 and Figure 2 below.
Figure 1 The Miami Trip
Figure 2 Rider position
The Ghost Train: This was chosen to provide an experience
containing elements of anxiety, allowing the link between these
two emotions to be explored. The Ghost Train that featured at
F:TL was three-tiered, and utilized a number of separate
carriages to carry 2 riders up a steep incline and then down
through a series of tunnels. Although speeds and accelerations
encountered by the Ghost Train rider are often much lower than
in other amusement park rides, it still provides a uniquely
thrilling experience through the use of darkness, actors and
props to startle and discomfort riders. The ride used in F:TL is
shown in Figure 3 and Figure 4 below.
Figure 3 The ghost train
Figure 4 Rider position
The Booster: This is a pure white-knuckle ride that relies
mainly upon fear and on extreme accelerations to elicit a sense
of thrill in the rider. The Booster featured at F:TL was a brand-
new ride imported from the company KMG [9] in the
Netherlands. It consisted of a central tower supporting a 40m-
long rotating arm. Freely rotating carriages were attached at
either end of the arm and held two pairs of riders seated back-
to-back. The speed and direction of the ride could be
controlled, with riders experiencing accelerations reaching up
to 4g. The Booster is shown in Figure 5 and Figure 6 below.
Figure 5 The Booster Figure 6 Rider position
2.2 Embedding the rides in the event
Each of these rides became the centerpiece of a theatrical event
in which riding became a live performance that was
deliberately staged for a watching audience. This was achieved
through the use of a custom-built telemetry system, which
captured and transmitted four data streams, consisting of (1)
video of a rider’s face (2) audio as a means of rider self-
reporting, (3) rider heart-rate and (4) rider acceleration. These
data streams were presented to audiences through a number of
different visualizations, and were also recorded for later
analysis. Visualizations included: (1) a projection of the data in
the style of a scientific analysis tool (2) a simpler visualization
that gave an overall impression of a rider’s experience, and (3)
a large impressionistic image that was projected onto the
surface of the building itself. In addition, each event included
talks by scientists and ride designers, dramatic performances,
and themed video, music and food. Early in each event, one of
our performers was asked to experience the chosen ride whilst
fitted with our telemetry equipment. Later in the event, an
audience member was selected to experience the ride in the
same manner, and the capture and display of both of these live
experiences provided a focus around which expert discussion
and audience interaction could be structured.
2.3 Event structure
Each event consisted of both tightly-scripted and less-directed
activities, which together lasted for approximately three hours.
Events took place in the Dana centre, a diagram of which is
shown in Figure 7. Audience members began arriving around 6
pm, with the first talks taking place at around 6:30pm and the
final fairground ride taking place just after 9pm. Food and
drink were provided throughout the evening, and scheduled
activities included introductions to the personal, sociological
and scientific nature of thrill and the design of fairground
technology.
Figure 7 Dana Centre locations used in the event
All three sets of events were structured slightly differently.
What follows is the description of the final event, which
focused on the Booster.
Arrival: Visitors arrive downstairs at the Café space in the
Dana Centre where they are served with themed food and drink
by ‘thrill technicians’, actors who help to frame the overall
event in a laboratory context. Visitors are also shown a video
installation, compiled from both archive footage held by the
National Fairground Archive [10] and other contemporary clips.
Programme 1: After a welcome speech by an event manager
from the Dana centre, a video presentation is shown, which is
intended to provide an introduction to the evening. This is
followed by an introduction to the programme by the curator.
Visitors then fill in lottery tickets, which are used later to select
an audience member to become a rider wearing the telemetry
equipment and therefore the focus of the event. Three short
scheduled talks follow. In between the 2nd and 3rd of these
talks, the audience is introduced to a professional ethnographer
who will be the first to experience the ride whilst wearing the
telemetry equipment. The ethnographer then gives a short talk
about the social nature of thrill, and the ride is then lit up and
spun a few times, to allow it to be seen by the audience through
the Dana centre’s windows.
Break: During the break, the visitors make their way to an area
called the Thrill Laboratory, positioned in the upstairs seminar
room of the Dana centre. In entering this room, they have the
chance to have a first look at the technology control centre,
where the telemetry hardware and software are being
monitored. This technology is shown in Figure 8.
Figure 8 Control centre technology as seen by the audience
Programme 2: The second half of the evening begins with live
telemetry of the ethnographer on the ride. The ethnographer
talks through his experience, and additional commentary is
provided by an expert physiologist, who describes his bodily
reactions with reference to the expert visualization. Figure 9
below shows a photograph of the scene in the thrill laboratory.
In this figure, the live video is being projected onto the wall on
the right of the main projection screen, and his audio feed is
being piped through over the room’s speakers.
Figure 9 Expert describing telemetry data to an audience
Once the presentation of the data is over, the lottery draw is
used to randomly select a member of the audience, who will be
the first audience member to experience the ride whilst wearing
telemetry equipment. The audience member is then led out to
the ride for preparation, and during this process the programme
continues with two further short talks. At the end of the 2nd
talk, the live telemetry of the lottery winner from the ride is
broadcast and displayed as before.
The fairground ride: The audience is now given the
opportunity to go on the ride themselves. The downstairs space
is transformed into a club with live music (which is also piped
onto the ride’s PA system), drinks, and the opportunity to talk
to the evening’s speakers. Open invitations are also made to
any visitors who would like to be hooked up to the telemetry
system. Live telemetry data broadcast from these individuals is
displayed in a non-expert format as peripheral media in the
downstairs café space.
3. THE TELEMETRY SYSTEM
The implementation of our technology progressed through the
construction of a series of partial prototypes over several
months, which were tested through installation on the specific
rides that were planned for use in particular events. This
process required several visits to amusement parks in the UK,
and had to fit in with the commercial pressures that apply to the
use of amusement rides stationed in these parks. Multiple site
visits were also made to the Dana centre, who co-operated in
the design of the physical networking infrastructure.
The key technologies that were exploited in the event in
addition to the fairground ride itself are the wearable telemetry
equipment and the three different data visualizations.
3.1 The wearable telemetry equipment
The telemetry equipment worn by each individual during F:TL
includes a camera helmet and an equipment jacket. Data is
transmitted wirelessly via a number ofjacket-mounted antennas
and received and processed by equipment positioned nearby to
the fairground ride. Processed data is then forwarded to the
infrastructure positioned inside the Dana centre over a wired
LAN connection, and this infrastructure is used to generate
visualizations ready for display over the Dana Centre’s internal
AV system.
Figure 10 Wearable telemetry technology
Figure 10 shows a member of the technology team wearing the
telemetry equipment during pre-event testing. The camera
Camera
Microphone
Aerials
Jacket
helmet is based on an adjustable PetzlTM climbing helmet. This
has been modified to allow a small camera to be mounted away
from the rider’s face, which points back towards the rider,
allowing the observation of facial expressions during the ride.
The camera is capable of switching between ambient-light and
infrared capture, and has a small inbuilt infrared source. Audio
was captured from a boom microphone mounted to the helmet
and connected to the audio-in of the camera.
The jacket carries a wireless video transmitter, an
accelerometer and a biometrical data monitor. A Neu-FusionTM
Wifi video transmitter, attached to a custom battery back,
receives the video and audio streams from the helmet camera,
and streams it wirelessly over WiFi as MPEG4. The helmet
camera is powered through the same battery pack.
A GUMSTIX TM computer, powered by a separate battery,
wirelessly streams acceleration data from the attached
accelerometer over WiFi. A separate Health-Smart biometrical
data monitor with its own internal battery streams heart rate
and electrocardiogram (ECG) data over Bluetooth. To allow
heart-related measurements to be taken, two surgical sensor
patches have to be attached to the chests of participants, and
these are connected directly to the bio-monitor device.
The rider-worn equipment has to answer several physical
design challenges. The equipment needs to be accommodated
by each ride’s different passenger restraint system, whilst also
being comfortable to wear for relatively long periods of time
and remain easily serviceable. The design also has to address
the added physical strain of wearing head-mounted equipment
at high g-forces, the securing of equipment being used on high-
speed rides, and the use of body-mounted electrical equipment.
To receive the wirelessly-streamed data, two powerful,
waterproof aerials are mounted near to the ride on tripods and
attached to a CISCOTM WiFi access point. These aerials are
positioned for best reception in front of the ride on the Dana
Centre lawn (and, in the case of the Ghost Train, on the ride
itself). The Bluetooth signal is received via a small booster
aerial attached to a laptop placed in the operator booths of each
ride. This same laptop runs data aggregator software which
pulls together all numerical data and serves it on request to the
different visualizations described below. The WiFi base station
and the Bluetooth laptop were connected via a wired hub and
fixed CAT5 link into the Dana Centre building, and then
onwards into the technology control centre. The technological
infrastructure as described above is illustrated in Figure 11.
3.2 The visualizations
Three separate visualizations of telemetry data were used in
F:TL, each with a different purpose. They were presented to the
audience at different stages of the event and also at different
physical locations, as illustrated in Figure 7 and Figure 11.
The first (shown in Figure 12) presents the audience with a
multi-panel visualization of the data from the biometrical data
monitor and the accelerometer. When using this visualization,
video from the helmet camera is projected alongside on a
separate screen, and audio is played over the Dana centre’s
audio system. The purpose of this combination is to enable
experts to talk the audience through some of the live data and
the physiological experiences the participant is undergoing.
This visualization is a central part of the event whilst the
ethnographer and the lottery winners are on the theme park
ride. A conscious decision was made to maintain and enhance
the ‘Math-lab’ style of remote medical monitoring data
visualization provided by project partners Health-Smart as it
added to the drama of being in a scientific control centre run by
experts.
The second visualization presented to the audience is a non-
expert visualization of the data, a screenshot of which is shown
in Figure 13 below. Here the live video and audio streamed
from the helmet camera are overlaid with a simple visualization
of the biometrical data. This is projected in the Dana centre
café during the second part of the event. This visualization is
intended to be easily read by a novice, and offers an uncluttered
representation of data that includes a rider’s heart-rate,
acceleration and facial expressions.
Figure 12 The expert visualization upstairs
Figure 11 The technological infrastructure
Live video
ECG
Acceleratio
Heart rate
Figure 13 The non-expert visualization downstairs
The third visualization involves a large projection of the live
video from the helmet camera on to a building opposite the
Dana Centre. This is particularly useful for reminding audience
members who are waiting to get on the ride what is to come,
increasing their anticipation, and can also be seen from inside
the thrill laboratory. This visualization shows the facial
expression with streaming binary data overlaid. It is intended to
conveythe impression that raw data is being streamed from the
fairground ride, while also enhancing the visual spectacle of the
ride.
3.3 Issues and limitations
Despite the constraints of time and budget, we were able to
produce a telemetry system that demonstrated adequate
performance and reliability on each of the amusement rides that
we applied it to. However, there are some limitations that could
usefully be addressed by future development.
First, due to time constraints, the various items of equipment
used in the system were only partially integrated. This meant,
for example, that multiple transmission protocols and batteries
were necessary, which caused some difficulties. In particular,
significant work was involved in checking and charging
multiple batteries, which also contributed extra weight to the
jacket.
Second, there was some signal loss in particular contexts on
each ride. The WiFi connection provided by the video sender
caused particular problems. Even at very low quality, the video
and audio streams provided by the sender tended to be
unreliable, although this differed for each ride. The booster, at
40 metres tall and rotating at relatively high speed, posed a
significant challenge, which had already been identified during
testing. Whilst satisfactory when stationary, the video and
audio streams would occasionally cut out when the rate of
rotation changed rapidly. This situation was made more
difficult by the central London location of the Dana Centre. We
traced over 30 WiFi access points in the vicinity, and had to
carefully choose an un-congested channel to avoid excessive
interference or signal degradation. Although such technology
failures could be minimized by allocating time to tune aspects
of each installation before an event began, such as the details of
antenna choice and positioning, some of the performance
aspects of F:TL had to be designed to reduce the impact of
potential failures on the audience experience. We believe that
F:TL performers successfully negotiated the difficulties
inherent in our technology. Indeed, in certain cases we might
argue that these difficulties actually enhanced the audience
experience, by emphasizing the experimental nature of F:TL.
4. AN EXAMPLE RIDER EXPERIENCE
More than 500 audience members participated in F:TL
throughout the three-week period over which it ran, and of
these, at least 25 visitors tried out our telemetry and
visualization system. In order to provide further insight into the
nature of the experience, the structure of the event, the
operation of the technology, and its impact on participants, we
now present the experience of one typical rider, Jane (not her
real name), a lottery winner who rode the Booster during the
final F:TL performance.
Jane’s experience began at around the halfway point of the
event. With all of the audience collected together in the Thrill
Laboratory, her number was drawn at random by an F:TL
performer, and she was identified and asked if she was happy
to volunteer as a rider. When she agreed, she was given the
opportunity to choose one friend to ride with her, and both of
these individuals were then led outside. After Jane had left the
laboratory, the event continued with further scheduled talks, as
described in section 2.3.
Once outside, Jane was introduced to a number of F:TL
performers, who began the process of fitting her with telemetry
equipment. A female performer attached two sensor pads to her
chest, and another fitted her with the telemetry helmet and
jacket. Throughout this process, hand-held radios were used by
the outside performers to monitor the progress of the ongoing
event. Once all equipment had been fitted, and once the outside
performers had been given a signal, Jane was led onto the ride
and was strapped into it by a professional ride operator. As she
mounted the ride, Jane was asked to describe how she was
feeling, to which she replied:
“I’m well excited actually, and really, really happy that
I got picked … I feel very lucky and privileged...”
An instruction was then issued to the outside performers by
radio, and Jane’s visualizations were activated, with one being
displayed inside the Thrill Laboratory and another being
projected onto the outside wall of the building opposite the
Dana centre. Jane was then told that she was live, and she
immediately began talking through her head camera and
microphone, even though no request had ever been made for
her to provide a commentary. We include a partial transcript of
her head-cam ride commentary here (taken from our recorded
data) as an illustration of her experience. The visualizations of
Jane’s telemetry seem to have been enjoyed enormously by
those watching in the Thrill Laboratory, who were observed to
laugh loudly at various points. It should also be noted that,
before Jane’s monologue began, the audience had also
experienced a talk by a body-monitoring expert aimed at
assisting them in interpreting the data that was being returned
by the various sensors to which Jane was connected.
Live video
ECG
Acceleratio
Heart rate
J: um hello I’m sitting on the ride slightly scared but
um really excited so it should be cool. If I die I love
you all! [heart rate begins to rise from a fairly steady
level]
J: The ride’s about to start! Ok we’re currently going
up … Oh my goodness this is amazing this is like the
best thing I’ve ever done … the view from up here is
absolutely amazing! [heart rate continues to rise]
J: We’re kinda hanging forwards and um we’re
coming down to the ground we’re quite slow at the
moment … yeah they’re speeding up a bit now [heart
rate relatively steady]
J: <loud screaming> Oooh! <loud screaming> ok that
was cool <loud screaming> oh my good … <loud
screaming> wow! <screaming and exclamation
continuing throughout the rest of the ride> [heart rate
hits an extended peak of over 170 beats per minute]
J: Ok, we’re coming to a stop now. Like that one,
yeah, you should give it a go. Woo! Can we go
again? [heart rate slowly begins to return to a lower
level]
After the ride had stopped, Jane was released, and the
telemetric equipment was removed from her. After spending
some time chatting to the performers, she was then taken back
inside the Dana Centre, where she met others coming out of the
Thrill Laboratory who had viewed her performance. Apart from
a very short interruption in video and audio during the ride, our
telemetry equipment worked well throughout Jane’s
experience, and we have since been able to reconstruct much of
her telemetry for analysis. Our body sensors produced
particularly interesting data – Jane’s highest recorded heart rate
was 179 beats per minute (raised from a level of between 110
and 130 beats per minute whilst waiting for the ride) and her
highest recorded acceleration was 3g. Jane was later given a
recording of her visualizations, which she has since reviewed
and enjoyed.
5. REFLECTIONS
We conclude our paper with some initial reflections on the
design of F:TL, especially its relation to contemporary themes
in Human Computer Interaction and also the ways in this
approach could be extended to enhance amusement rides in the
future.
F:TL elicited a very positive response from participants with
both riders and spectators expressing great enjoyment of the
event. It also stimulated wider interest in the media and the
amusement industry, leading to several subsequent requests to
restage the event elsewhere, including at a major commercial
theme park. Reflecting on the experience, we feel that T:FL
was successful because it extended the ride experience in two
key dimensions: extending participation by addressing
spectators as well as riders; and extending the duration of the
experience both in terms of the build up to the ride and also the
ability to reflect on it afterwards. We consider each of these in
turn.
5.1 Extending participation in rides
F:TL has focused on extending the experience of amusement
rides to watching spectators. This reflects an emerging theme
within Human Computer Interaction. Motivated by the spread
of interactive technologies into public settings such as galleries,
museums, and city streets, HCI researchers have begun to
consider how to design interaction to be engaging for spectators
as well as for direct participants. In particular, a recent paper
has proposed a framework for addressing this question based
on a distinction between performers (those who are directly
using an interface) and spectators (those who are nearby and
who may be observing its use) [3]. Designers determine the
extent to which a performer’s manipulations of the interface as
well as their subsequent effects are hidden from or revealed to
spectators, leading to four broad design strategies: secretive, in
which both manipulations and effects are hidden; magical, in
which the manipulations are hidden but their effects are
revealed; expressive, in which both manipulations and effects
are revealed or amplified; and suspenseful, in which
manipulations are revealed but their effects (the ‘payoff’)
remain hidden.
F:TL provides an example of deliberately designing a spectator
interface. In this case, the performers are our riders. While they
do not directly control the ride, they are manipulated by it,
through forces creating movements. Applying the above
framework, traditional fairground rides are suspenseful in that
manipulations are usually revealed (one can usually see the
mechanisms of the ride), but effects are largely hidden (it is
difficult to appreciate the rider’s experience with the exception
of hearing the occasional scream). Our telemetry system
introduces more expression into rides by capturing and publicly
displaying aspects of the ride’s effects on the rider for
spectators to see. Given that spectators still cannot experience
the feel of the ride, the resulting interface falls somewhere
between being expressive and suspenseful. Evidence for the
success of this approach can be seen in a substantial number of
incidents in which our audience members demonstrated their
interest and involvement in the live telemetry that they were
being shown, including through collective laughter at dramatic
points in a ride, pointing out aspects of the visualizations to
people sitting nearby, and taking pictures of the visualizations
with cameras and mobile-phones.
Furthermore, we can see from our earlier transcript how we
have also enhanced the rider experience by enabling and even
encouraging them to narrate their experience of the ride to the
watching spectators, transforming into performers in the
traditional theatrical sense of the term.
5.2 Extending the duration of rides
F:TL extended the duration of the ride experience. Prior to the
ride, the public display of other rider’s data served to stimulate
interest. The process of being selected to be a public rider and
subsequently being induced into the experience, especially
donning the equipment, appeared to further heighten
anticipation. It seems turning a ride into a public event in
which the rider is aware of being watched by an audience can
dramatically enhance the experience. It is an open question at
this time whether the success of this tactic relies on limiting it
to just a few riders or whether it would be as effective if each
rider was performing to just a small audience, say a few family
members or friends.
An interesting feature of F:TL was the number of individuals
who asked to see recordings of their own experiences that had
been made earlier in the evening. In earlier events, we had not
anticipated this, and did not make any public announcements
indicating it was possible, yet still many individuals came to
find the technical team at the end of the evening, in the hope
that their experiences had been recorded and that they could
view them. Because of this interest, we made the viewing of
these recordings a feature of later events, and on several
occasions the technical team ended up staying at the Dana
centre for well over an hour after the official finish of the event,
showing riders their videos, talking through the details of the
visualizations that they contained and describing the technical
equipment that was required to generate them. In many cases,
riders brought friends along with them for this viewing and for
these riders, considerable enjoyment seems to have been gained
through the use of our recordings as a stimulus during the
recounting of personal memories of experiences to their friends.
In such cases, we can see how our approach also extends the
duration of the experience beyond the moment of the ride itself.
Finally, since the event we have also produced several souvenir
videos of individual rides which we have sent to the riders
concerned.
6. SUMMARY AND THE FUTURE
We have demonstrated how we can use telemetry to transform
the act of riding an amusement ride into a theatrical event,
extending the experience for riders while also enhancing its
entertainment value for spectators. In our case, this has
involved capturing video, audio, heart-rate and acceleration
information from riders, streaming it to a variety of public
displays and then involving different experts to provide insights
into different riders’ experiences and to discuss the nature of
thrill in relation to fairground rides. Initial trials with three
contrasting fairground rides have demonstrated that this
approach is technically feasible and have yielded initial
evidence that it can lead to a powerful experience for riders and
spectators.
In the medium term, we propose that it is feasible to extend the
still image capture facilities that are already commonplace on
major rides to support this kind of telemetry, including
producing richer souvenirs. In the longer term, we foresee other
exciting possibilities for using telemetry data to enhance
amusement rides. First, such data may allow the detailed
analysis of the riding experience, enabling designers to
understand at precisely which moments riders feel the most
thrill and also how different people react to different rides,
supporting the more systematic design of more thrilling rides.
A second possibility is to design future rides that directly adapt
to individual riders’ preferences or past history, for example
tuning their movements in response to telemetry data,
providing a more personalized riding experience than is
currently possible [1]. Third, this kind of telemetry system
could be used as a marketing tool by enabling amusement rides
to be reliably rated for the experience they deliver. The fourth
and final possibility concerns extending the spectator
experience to include ‘tele-riding’ through a more immersive
presentation of the telemetry data such as a through a 3D
simulation that could even be experienced by remote friends
and family at a distance over the Internet. We hope that the
work that we have presented in this paper helps to inspire
similar ideas and so define a new research agenda for
amusement rides as a form of entertainment.
7. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to acknowledge the contribution to this
paper made by the Dana Centre, who commissioned
Fairground: Thrill Laboratory, in addition to providing funding,
performance space and event support. Additional funding has
been provided through the Equator Interdisciplinary Research
Consortium, which is funded by the Engineering and Physical
Sciences Research Council in the UK. Figure 1 has been
reproduced by permission of Gaetan Lee, Figure 2, Figure 3,
Figure 4, Figure 5 and Figure 9 have been reproduced by
permission of Tara Khan and Figure 8 has been reproduced by
permission of Dan Howland, editor and publisher of the Journal
of Ride Theory. Additional thanks to Mauricio Capra, Jan
Humble and Anthony Steed for support during the research
process.
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