NEWS: Universal Files Patent for NEW Ride Vehicles

Both Disney and Universal are both trying to push the boundaries for what they can do with attractions.

Disney, of course, has always been at the forefront of technology, not just with its animatronics, but with just how highly technical the rides end up being (like Rise of the Resistance). However, Universal has filed its share of patents to upgrade its own theme park experiences, including a new patent that could create a completely new kind of ride.

The patent, which is called “Attraction System for Amusement Park” is for a kind of dynamic seating that would develop a kind of seating system on rides where the seat creates a sensation of movement, even if the rider is stationary. Get this, though — this dynamic seating also features controls that the rider can use to move the seat around. So basically, these seats would allow riders to move around, stand, sit, and more without leaving the seat by using these controls.

Think of it like this. If you play a video game with a controller, the controller affects how the character moves, where the character moves to, and other aspects of movement. So it’s basically like that, except you’re controlling a character that is essentially YOU.

So it works like this: the seating system has sensors plus a controller that you would interact with. When you use the controller, it triggers the seat to change its configuration, moving between sitting or standing or to other positions. So this would allow you to ride an attraction and change how you interact with it on the fly, basically persononalizing it specifically based on what you do with the controls.

The patent includes a configuration where the seating structures with controls are attached to a moving vehicle so that the ride is moving along a path, but as it travels along that path, you have controls allowing you to adjust the seating configuration, changing how you interact with whatever is happening along that path. Yes, that sounds complicated because it is. But it basically is just a new way to give riders an opportunity to directly interact to whatever is going on around them in a ride.

Now, we have to say that a lot of patents are filed for things and then never used, and we doubt this is something we’ll see when Epic Universe opens next year. However. we’ll admit that this is a unique concept that we’d love to see in a future attraction. We’ll just have to see what comes of it.

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