We’re being taken for a spin at the fairground, with another new ride rolling in. What enterprise this is, seeing all these scary new attractions rolling in. Did someone say enterprise?
Enterprise is indeed one heck of a spin. The circle of twenty pods begins to turn with gradually increasing speed, such that centrifugal force pins passengers to their chairs, which must really be quite some feeling. On this, the other eye-opener; there are no safety belts or bars, only the cage around the pod. You will stay in your seat. Hmm…!
Once whirling at full pelt, the ominous looking arm beneath the wheel kicks into life, raising to a peak of eighty-seven degrees and, with that constant high speed, making the ride appear more stomach-turning than most others I can think of. I’m told it’s much more fun and not nearly so terrible as a passenger; I’m quite happy to take their word for it.
As you probably guessed, the name comes from Star Trek. For a contraption so ahead of its time – Enterprise first landed in theme parks in 1972 – perhaps such a connection wasn’t without merit. It still puts on quite the show.
Primary colours probably isn’t the pallette most synonymous with space nor Trekkies, but never mind – who wants to conform?
This process was something of a mish-mash of a couple of my previous rides, really. The wheel was reminiscent of the Rock-O-Plane – virtually identical, only slightly larger and with vastly more spokes to it; the pods themselves echoed the Dodgems, and the lessons learnt there in constructing the bumper car helped no end here – my Enterprise pod was rustled up in nowhere near the amount of time that took. The axis of the pod is set in correspondence with the circumference of the wheel, meaning the rotation can give the desired effect.
It was nice to do an exercise that built on some of the techniques learnt previously – good to flex those muscles again, I’m sure – use it or lose it, and all that!