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Prototype Captures Lost Energy from Braking Coasters
 Discussions about amusement park roller coasters often focus on the amount of energy generated to propel their ride vehicles to full speed. What is usually not considered is the huge amount of energy created—and lost— by braking these massive vehicles.
That is exactly what Toyota Motor Corporation of Japan (www.toyota.com) wanted to test. Its advertising agency, Saatchi & Saatchi LA, developed the idea of testing whether Toyota’s Hybrid Synergy Drive system could be employed on a roller coaster to generate electricity that could be used to power other things in an amusement park, as a part of Toyota’s “Ideas for Good” campaign.
The agency contacted Deeplocal (www.deeplocal.com), an innovation studio that spun out of an art and technology research lab at Carnegie-Mellon University about five years ago. Deeplocal disassembled a 2011 Toyota Prius and used the engine, batteries, wiring harness, and Hybrid Synergy Drive system in a custom-designed coaster car. It then tested the system on a short run of track with a 10-foot drop and a car reaching a speed of 15 miles per hour. During the braking of the coaster car, Deeplocal measured a peak of approximately 30 amps at 200 volts coming from the Hybrid Synergy Drive and as much as 6,000 watts of generated power.
 “It demonstrated that there is the potential for a large amount of energy being wasted that can be captured,” Nathan Martin, Deeplocal’s CEO, tells Funworld. “The test demonstrated that there’s this unused power being wasted that could be capitalized on. What we found out while doing this project is that the brakes generate so much power that it’s actually more than the battery can store.” Martin notes a park might want to store the energy so it could use it later on.
During the trial run, Deeplocal tested a series of high-power-consumption incandescent bulbs used in a real amusement park sign. The power generated from the braking was enough to power all of the bulbs. “Kennywood was very gracious and donated lights from their ‘Music Express’ sign,” says Martin. “The lights in the sign consumed about 5,000 watts. We also brought in some LED bulbs, and we [lined] the track and the front of the coaster with those, and all of those LED bulbs only consumed as much energy as two of the old incandescent bulbs.”
As for what amusement parks and attractions should take from this demonstration, Martin replies, “I think they should use it as inspiration. In one instance in one coaster in one scenario, we generated 6,000 watts of power, so what happens if you replicate that across an entire park and you do that every day—these numbers would add up very quickly. I think the challenge is retrofitting existing rides, if someone could develop that.”
Indeed. If 6,000 watts were generated from braking a small roller coaster car at 15 mph, imagine the power that could be generated from braking the massive trains on a ride like “Kingda Ka,” which comes to a stop from speeds of more than 120 mph.
“Think of all of the places where braking occurs and where it’s being wasted,” says Martin, “and other places as well where energy is being wasted, places you might not even think of.”
Putt-Putt Shooting for a Late-Round Comeback
 In the turbulent economic times of the past few years, it has been common to hear of the demise of iconic brands, while rebounding brands seemed few and far between. Yet such is the case with Putt-Putt miniature golf (www.putt-putt.com), a brand that has been around since the 1950s.
The franchise dwindled from several hundred locations in the mid-1980s to fewer than 70 by the mid-2000s; in fact, it had stopped franchising altogether. Enter new owner David Callahan in 2004. Headquartered in Winston- Salem, North Carolina, he is reinventing the brand and taking it from a miniature golf company with differing layouts, graphics, and attractions at each location to a franchise company with a consistent, tested, and financially proven prototype available to both new and existing locations. Callahan answered a few questions from Funworld about how he is rebuilding the Putt-Putt identity.
What went wrong that led to Putt-Putt’s near demise?
The founder died in 1996 and didn’t have a strong succession in place. I got involved with Putt-Putt in 2000 as CEO and found that Putt-Putt’s miniature golf side was popular, but in a lot of the other areas of its family entertainment centers, they’d failed to keep up with the times of what would work and not work.
 What did brand development firm Cassels-Caywood-Love advise you to do that you think was very significant?
They advised us to do a complete rebranding—our website, our graphics, our signage … everything.
You stress the importance of having consistent prototype locations rather than varied layouts and attractions at each location. Why?
If you look at any successful franchise, you need to have strong brand recognition and you need to be consistent, so that if you play at a Putt-Putt Fun Center in Fayetteville, North Carolina, it looks the same as Baton Rouge, Louisiana—we need that for brand recognition.
You say you evaluated and tested attractions, and either added to, updated, or eliminated them. Please elaborate.
In the existing system, you’d find Putt- Putt golf only, you’d find Putt-Putt and games, you’d find Putt-Putt and gokarts— there was no consistency based on what would be successful. So we’ve tried to determine what will work best.
How has this manifested itself at the Fayetteville prototype location?
We wanted to build a fun center that would require much less land than before. We have a 6,000-square-foot building there with bumper cars, birthday party rooms, games, and the ability to expand to 12,000 square feet and add another attraction. We also have batting cages and have changed to allelectric go-karts. We did all of this, yet we were able to get the entire project on slightly less than three acres. We’ve made it more affordable and easier to manage.
Are you operating just in the U.S.?
No, we have locations in Indonesia and in South Korea, and we have a delegation coming to Winston-Salem soon from China to talk about [a franchise].
Summarize why you think the amusement industry should take note of Putt-Putt.
We have a brand that’s 57 years old and well recognized, and we have the only skill-based miniature golf and the only franchised miniature golf. Upon site approval, we can get that exact same fun center in [Fayetteville] built in six months, and you don’t have to reinvent the wheel—we have strong training and support. We have every vendor lined up, so you don’t have to shop it. Plus, we have the ability to really help new franchises because we have franchisees on the board that bring 40 years of experience to the table.
Small Waterpark Lands Big Promotion Deals
 It might be safe to assume that securing an agreement to put admission discount coupons in the checkout lines of monster retailer Walmart, or getting such coupons printed on the back of a major state’s lottery tickets, would be deals way out of reach for a relatively small, one-location waterpark. Fortunately, Buddy Wilkes did not make that assumption, and he has managed to pull off both of these marketing coups for his park.
The general manager of Shipwreck Island Waterpark in Panama City Beach, Florida, used ingenuity, good community relations, and a lot of persistence to orchestrate these big promotions. “If you’re Coke, Pepsi, or Procter and Gamble, you can certainly get your stuff in Walmart,” says Wilkes, “but if you’re a small waterpark, it’s tough.”
Wilkes recalls his inspiration for cutting a deal with the local Walmart: “I’d leave work at midnight and go by this Walmart to get something, and they had more cars in the parking lot than we had at the park all night! This store does some of the highest volume in the whole Walmart chain—they do phenomenal numbers—and it’s packed with people 24 hours a day. I thought if I could tap into that market, beyond just paid advertising, that would be huge.”
The challenge: enormous numbers of local businesses want to cut deals with Walmart, so Wilkes had to devise a concept that would give him an edge. Instead of trying to get Walmart to sell admission tickets to his park, he offered them discount admission coupons. “For Walmart, it gives them the opportunity to give something valuable to their customers,” says Wilkes. “They’d be giving a family of four $16 back in coupons at the register.”
But the clincher was partnering with the Panama City Beach Library Foundation. “There was funding for the new library,” he says, “but not for kids programs or new books, so everyone in the community knows there’s a need. So we’ve agreed to provide a portion of the admission proceeds to the Panama City Beach Library Foundation on behalf of the local Walmart and Shipwreck Island.”
This tie-in appealed to the local Walmart, and it agreed to let Shipwreck Island place discount coupons on each of the bag carousels at the store’s 30 checkout counters and to have small stand-alone signs with attached coupon holders near the exits.
This deal comes on the heels of another marketing feat Wilkes pulled off last year with the Florida Lottery. He sent a marketing proposal to the state lottery, to which it immediately replied “no.” But Wilkes persisted, suggesting the lottery should at least give his proposal a full hearing before denying it. “We went over it and spent a few weeks talking about it,” he says. “They finally agreed and were so happy with it that they’re amenable to doing it again this year.”
The lottery printed $5 admission discount coupons on the back of lottery tickets, targeted to the waterpark’s market. Even if people bought losing tickets, they would still “win” by getting a discount to the waterpark. “We were in 641 lottery outlets from Pensacola to Tallahassee,” says Wilkes, “and if you go to www.floridalottery.com, you’ll see our coupon offer at the bottom—we’re right there next to Universal Studios!” Wilkes notes this arrangement did not cost his park anything.
Reflecting back on pulling off these big promotional deals for his park, Wilkes has some simple advice: “Don’t ever hold back just because you’re small.”
Monterey Bay Aquarium Swims into $19M ‘The Open Sea’
 This summer the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, California (www.montereybayaquarium.org), will debut The Open Sea, a $19 million section consisting of three main galleries—“ Out to Sea,” “Open Sea,” and “Ocean Travelers.”
Two years in planning and 10 months in construction, The Open Sea represents a complete remake of the aquarium’s Outer Bay galleries, which the facility says needed remodeling. Fifteen years of wear and tear from hundreds of animals inside the exhibit as well as 10 million-plus visitors over that time easily warranted the refurbishment.
The new “Out to Sea” gallery offers a close-up view of phytoplankton, which is the basis of the food system on which all ocean life depends; it will also display a massive bloom of jellies. The million-gallon “Open Sea” exhibit features animals built for speed, agility, and endurance, like tuna, barracuda, mackerel, and sardines. “Ocean Travelers” highlights the long journeys of the ocean’s migratory species and includes a new exhibit on juvenile green sea turtles.
Of note, the opening of The Open Sea marks the debut of three new species to the aquarium: tufted puffins, sandbar sharks, and deep-sea jellies. Tufted puffins, called “sea parrots” by early sailors because of their stout bodies and short wings, are excellent divers. The new exhibit gives visitors the chance to watch them dive and swim.
The 12,643-square-foot exhibit has some interactive elements, as well, according to Karen Jeffries, the aquarium’s public relations manager: “A multimedia wall [is] devoted to plankton, which form the base of the food web in the oceans; innovative environmental art installations that each tell a compelling ocean conservation story; and a dome theater with video footage simulating a jelly bloom right over visitors’ heads.”
As Jeffries points out, Monterey Bay is renowned for its jellies and for showing five great white sharks at the same time.
The aquarium’s most popular exhibit ever, “The Secret Lives of Seahorses,” will remain open into 2013, and Jeffries explains its allure: “In pure visitation numbers, this special exhibition is consistently off the charts. Guests leave very, very happy and often very moved by the beauty and grace of the experience. Seahorses have fascinated humans for centuries, and we introduce guests to not only seahorses, but their amazing relatives, as well, including the incredible leafy sea dragon. You look at a seahorse and time goes away—they’re that compelling.”
The Open Sea is slated to open at the aquarium July 2, 2011.
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