Mom here.
This summer, we will take a model of the family version of a Snow White Mine Car rollercoaster to give a full presentation of our ride to the real Disney Imagineering. We will use the ImagiNations http://disneyimaginations.com/contest as a guideline for how we will prepare and present our project.
When we first came up with the our Dwarf's rollercoaster several years ago the kids wanted to Imagineer a scavenger hunt with a maze for the queue line to FIND the ride, putting a trap door in the floor to dump guests into the mother lode of jewels (a ball pit). While I talked them out of it back then, they're just as excited as ever to see their plan in model form.
Now that they're older both kids are skilled and knowledgeable enough to create their own model by themselves. When we finish with the rollercoaster model the kids will branch out onto their own to create the maze queue. We will then be presenting the first coaster as a family team with the kids giving their own presentation of the maze and scavenger hunt. The rollercoaster model will be created out of hobby train materials with storyboards and a PowerPoint presentation while the maze will be made out of Legos with a presentation/walk through using Lego stop-motion video.
The Ride:
The Snow White ride is to be two separate rides with separate queues: a dark ride typical of the classic Disneyland Fantasyland rides and a rollercoaster worthy of its own Disney mountain. The Disney term 'dark ride' means that a ride is contained completely within a building. Peter Pan, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Snow White's Scary Adventure are all good examples of dark rides.
We did extensive Disney Imagineering research to make our presentation as close to a work of their own as possible. Disney says every ride starts with a story so the first thing we did was to craft a tale to turn into a ride.
Snow White is preparing to marry her prince and the Dwarfs are in charge of mining the jewels for her crown and ring. Within their mine is 'the mother lode' which is a huge stash of their most precious jewels hidden deep within the mining mountain, accessible only by one map which Dopey accidentally lost. Now, everyone needs to help the dwarfs search the countless tracks of the mine to find the 'mother lode' and bring the map back to the group so they can race back in, fit the jewels into the jewelry, and make it back in time for Snow White's wedding.
The hunt for the mother lode is the dark ride portion, with the queue line beginning the story for the guests. The vehicles in the dark ride are to be driven by an animatronic dwarf with a forest friend companion who is supposed to help map the path the vehicle has taken, for not all vehicles will find the mother lode, but all will at least drive past it. The vehicles are to interact with one another as well as the scenery it passes, with dwarfs waving to each other, talking to each other and making comments along the way. When the ride is over, guests have the option of exiting the ride and leaving the mountain altogether, or continuing in a queue to the rollercoaster portion.
The rollercoaster portion has two queues for the story, one is to pick up the jewels and make the crowns for the wedding, the other is to race to through the forest with the crowns and jewelry to the wedding itself. The loading for the first coaster loads in an area visible to the dark ride's loading station. When guests exit the first coaster portion, they again have the option to exit into the queue for the second portion of the coaster ride and complete the story via rollercoaster or exit the ride altogether taking in the rest of the story visually through the exit queue.
Even though the Imagineers have their own version of this ride coming through, we will craft a model of our interpretation of the ride to present to the Imagineering team. Now, cross your fingers and say some prayers while the kids will again write to Imagineering to ask for the opportunity to come down and present our models for the sake of it. Let's hope for a great response!
