It doesn't rely on high speed like some rides. It only goes 30 mph. Nevertheless, X Scream from interactive Rides (Logan, UT) is a ride that thrills riders because of where it operates: 900 feet above the Las Vegas Strip at the top of the Stratosphere Tower.

Engineering the ride is where Clay Carter comes into the picture. As the VP of Engineering at Interactive Rides, the development of X Scream ride is an engineering story on multiple levels for him. There are the concept development and design engineering phases of the ride, but equally interesting are the integration and installation of the ride at 900 ft above the Las Vegas strip. "Parts of the installation were very challenging," says Carter. "For example, we used helicopters to drop some of the pieces into place. At times, the helicopter rotors were a couple of feet away from the tower."

On another level, designing the ride meant integrating ride components from multiple companies. Atos, Parker Hannifin, and Rockwell Automation are all are part of the ride's main motion control system.

Interactive Rides based the ride's operation on Allen-Bradley ControlLogix controllers, a PanelView Plus operator interface, and redundant I/O that ranges from simple proximity switches to AMCI multi-turn resolvers. . . To read the rest of the story, click here.

Websites to visit:

Atos: www.fluidpowerassociates.com

Parker Hydraulic valves: www.parker.com/ead/cm1.asp?cmid=199

Rockwell Controls: www.rockwellautomation.com/oem/

Stratosphere Hotel Webcam