Theme Park Log Ride

One of my favorite childhood memories is the first time I ever went to Disneyland. My now stepfather was dating my mother at the time, and he convinced her to take us on a family trip to Disneyland. My sisters and I had never even been on a plane, so this was huge. I was just getting to know my stepfather at the time, and he turned out to be the “cool” dad. When we were there, my little sister and I were the more daring ones and we really wanted to go on Splash Mountain. My stepfather volunteered, because my mother cannot go on rides, and we waited in line for three hours (what a homie). The cars on Splash Mountain are log flumes, and I wanted to recreate that “memory” by making that into a parametric design.

I created three different sizes of the cars. The largest size is for bigger or taller adults, typically excluded from rides, medium is for adults and/or teenagers, and a small one for kids.

I used Fusion 360, which makes parametric design a lot easier with the “history” toolbar. I first hand-sketched the biggest log flume ride, and started with the parameters in Sketch on Fusion 360. The cylindrical parameters for the biggest log flume began at 90mm diameter and 160mm in length. When I scaled down the design for the smaller sizes, I cut the medium size log flume by about 1/3 and the smaller one is 1/2 of the largest (give or take).

While making this design, I struggled most with the design or look of a “log”. The dimensions shifted a little as I creased the edges or carved the front and back sides as I tried to make them a little imperfect in “form” mode to be true to a tree. They ended up looking pretty symmetrical, so my efforts didn’t exactly give a “unique” factor. Overall, I had a lot of fun with this project and recreating a childhood memory.

Here is the interactive design: