Not every day you hear about a country’s intentions to dedicate a theme park to robotics and artificial science, but South Korea looks to build such an amusement park by 2016.
Indeed, robots and AI don’t get anywhere near the deserved recognition, and those terrible Transformers movies (starring actual cannibal Shia LeBeouf, well, not anymore as of Age of Extinction), which feature dinobots as of lately, don’t even qualify as a tribute to this grand field that is robotics.
South Korea intends to build an amusement park called Robot Land, and open it in 2016. With news of this country using a modified version of Microsoft Kinect to guard the strip of land that separates it from North Korea (also known as DMZ or the Korean Demilitarized Zone), it’s safe to say that South Korea goes big when it comes to hi-tech.
The amusement park spanning 387,505 square meters in Incheon, 30 km from Seoul, will definitely be family-friendly, despite the recent fear of a Skynet rising that was caused by Google’s sudden interest in buying a lot of robotics companies, including Boston Dynamics. Besides rides, attractions, a waterpark and a hotel, Robot Land will also include a graduate school for robotics, as well as an R&D lab. I love the fact that they’re also focusing on educating people, not only on entertaining them. On top of it all, Robot Land will also have a residential complex, a condominium and a retail center.
National and local governments, along with private developers, invested significant amounts of money in this project, and the total cost is estimated at $625 million. Besides the Robot Gaming Arena, the Robot Kingdom will also feature an area where it will be demonstrated how robots will assist the elders in 2030, and how they will do various house chores.
The Robot City, on the other hand, will include an aquarium populated by robotic fish. Kidbot Village will be home to such attractions as a flying robot coaster, Bot Bounce jump ride, Ferris wheel, merry-go-round of robot animals and education center. South Korea’s decision to mix hi-tech entertainment with educational attraction is definitely worth some applause, as most developers only focus on the former, and not even that is hi-tech at all times. This will be the world’s first amusement park with such a focus, but hopefully other countries will follow the trend and develop their own, too.
Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about the Parrot Jumping Sumo and the Roboexotica Festival.
