A patent from Disney describes a unique upgrade to the classic “teacup” attraction. In a patent filed earlier this month, Disney describes a “Spinning Amusement Park Ride with Onboard Power Generation”. In this patent, Disney imagines an updated ride experience for a teacup attraction where guests are able to power onboard effects as they manually spin the attraction.
In the patent, Disney describes the need for amusement park operators to continually update their attractions to encourage guests to ride an attraction multiple times and return to theme parks. To that end, Disney envisions an update to a teacup attraction such as the Mad Tea Party where they fit ride vehicles with mechanisms that allow each teacup to have special effects such as unique lighting, differing sounds, visual displays, and more thanks to guest-generated power.
Because of the complexity of a teacup-type spinning attraction, running wires to power each vehicle is extremely complex, if not impossible. In the patent, the vehicle would capture power generated by guests spinning the ride to enable special effects on each vehicle. The power generated would be contained to, and used for, each individual ride vehicle.
The patent, as most do, attempts to capture as wide of a use-case as possible. In doing so, Disney doesn’t limit itself to just a teacup-style attraction, but any attraction where guests can apply a force to the ride vehicle to generate power. Essentially, Disney is looking to capture kinetic energy generated by guests and turn it into electrical energy for use on the ride vehicle.
Another type of attraction that might benefit from this patent would be an attraction such as Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin where guests are able to spin the attraction vehicle even though it flows a more traditional ride path when compared to a “simple” teacup attraction.
What do you think? Would you like to power your very own special effects on a Disney ride vehicle in the future? Let us know in the comments below or on social media!
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