How Disney can shake your world

Disney has created many effects for shows and attractions to help enhance the experience, whether it is special lighting, smells, sounds and water, but what about making the ground shake?

Imagine standing in a location and the Hulk lands next to you, or a dinosaur walks by, or a volcano erupts, and in all of those instances, the earth shakes.

A Disney patent called “Haptic Floor System with Quake Plate Assemblies Producing Large Vibration Effects,” outlines how Disney can create such an effect.

Theme and amusement parks are continuously searching for new ways to entertain visitors Disney is pushing the limits to create immersive hands-on experiences.

There is also a push to creating these experiences for groups of people who can also interact with each other.

The new patent explains that a haptic floor system can do this.

“A haptic floor system is provided that produces large vibration-based effects through the use of one-to-many panel or plate assemblies that can each be selectively operated by a controller in a programmed manner or in response to sensor outputs. Each of these panel or plate assemblies may be labeled a ‘quake plate assembly’ as the special effect delivered by the haptic floor system can provide a person supported by one of the quake plate assemblies with ground trembling and vibrations similar to that felt in an earthquake or when a super strong fictional character strikes the floor nearby or a large animal or robot walks or runs by the person,” the patent states.

Early uses of the system were for virtual reality experience, but the goal is to create an experience without having to use a virtual reality system, the patent states.

A testing of a prototype showed that “high strength vibrations under people’s feet can provide surprising immersive experiences for the participants/system users,” according to the patent.

Some applications could include smaller quake plate assemblies in park rides or gamer seats.

What do you think? What would type of ride would you like to see this used on?