A Roller Coaster Photo System That Paid for Itself Many Times Over

The problem

A family amusement park wanted to sell riders photos of themselves on its roller coaster, taken at one of the ride’s most thrilling drops and printed while they wait. The park had no such system and no one in-house to design one.

What we built

The entire system, hardware and software. All the park had to do was mount the camera, the flash, and the trigger sensor.

A camera and flash that fire at exactly the right moment. A sensor on the track detects the car, and its signal fires a high-resolution industrial camera and a 20,000-lumen strobe together. Camera timing and flash intensity and duration are adjustable, so every photo can be dialed in for the spot and the light.

Big savings on hardware. We researched and selected every component, and sourced quality used industrial equipment where it made sense, cutting thousands of dollars from the hardware cost without giving up capability.

Photos that arrive instantly. The camera sends each photo over its own private network to the booth computer, so photo transfer never competes with the rest of the park’s network traffic.

A display that sells. Riders exit past a screen showing four photos at a time, in numbered panels framed in the park’s own theme. Between riders, it cycles through sample photos to draw people in, and it makes snapping a phone picture of the screen less tempting. When riders step up, the operator switches to showing their own photos.

Simple for seasonal staff. The operator browses the latest shots and pushes any four to the display. When a rider picks a number, one click brings that photo into an editor to crop, pan, and zoom, and one more prints it.

Housekeeping built in. Photos clear automatically after 24 hours, and equipment settings sit behind a password-protected administration screen.

The result

The park gained a new source of revenue from a ride it already owned, and recovered its investment many times over.