Industry events and organizations – Page 3 – Kathryn Woodcock, PhD CCPE ICAE PEng

Industry week, 2014

Students from TMU (formerly Ryerson) at Universal Orlando — Photo by John Riggleman

Reading Week, Winter 2014, Ryerson Thrill Club members followed up the ASTM Committee F24 meetings in Ft. Lauderdale with a road trip to Orlando. Generous industry supporters arranged valuable behind-the-scenes tours and career-relevant tips. We’re so grateful for the commitment to the next generation!

Amusement ride safety: who “does” it?

Several people stand inside a covered amusement ride discussing what they are looking at, as patrons stand outside hoping to ride,

There is considerable diversity from jurisdiction to jurisdiction about portable carnival ride inspection. However no rides go uninspected.

Accessible theme parks

Walt Disney quote: delight all members of the family

I just finished reading “Theme Park Design: Behind the scenes with an engineer” by Steve Alcorn. I picked it up at the Bookstore during the IAAPA Expo in Orlando last month and took advantage of the flight home to read quite a lot of the way through. The book describes in a very realistic way how talented people make plans–and adapt to reality–using examples from his own career in show engineering with a number of theme parks, as employee and as contracted consultant, including many examples from his role in the organization now known as Walt Disney Imagineering and particularly the construction and launch of Disney’s second Florida park: Epcot. The book clearly differentiates the many specializations required to conceive, design, plan, build, test, and operate an amusement attraction.

In the queue

bees on a wire, like the toys in dentists' waiting room

Any service involves queueing, whether it is a doctor’s office or public transit. The queue is the area where you wait for service. Sometimes you are literally in a line and other times you are more of a herd, and sometimes you’re lucky enough to arrive at the point of service to find no one waiting (instabus!) but queueing is a fact of life. Waiting to ride an amusement ride typically involves a queue, and this becomes sort of the folklore or fiction of the activity.