... notable events : Tequila and the Terminator

When I first heard about it, I was excited! Coooool! We did such things here?

An annual mini themepark....

Wow, just... wow!

... and I was going to be part of building one. How cool is that?

My residence house, Cariboo House was one of the most active and notorious houses on campus. That it was an all male house probably helped maintain its yearly reputation at the pinnacle of notoriety. It was known for the crazy antics of its residents, it was also known for some of the rowdiest and noisiest room parties on residence, as well as rather sadly, a somewhat not so stellar reputation to help keep students in university. Cariboo house however, was also well known for one thing... its annual theme park event.

At the house meeting to chose a theme for this year's event, the vote was unanimous. Terminator II Judgement Day was THE movie event of the year. Dared we even attempt anything less?

Last year the theme had been Peter Pan. I rolled my eyes when I heard that, many of us stifling sniggers and grins while what must have been silly visions of our guys prancing around in tight green pants swimming through all our minds. I wondered who played tinkerbell?

There would not be silly pansy tights, gossamer fairy wings or gleaming hooks this year however. We were going pedal to the metal in cool leather jackets, terminator shades and mangled pronunciations of "Esta la vista, baby".

The house was broken into teams. Every floor formed themselves into two teams except for my first floor which only had enough people to form one. Each team was tasked to construct a theme park ride station based on the movie.

The idea for it was simple. With the chosen theme, teams were to pick a particular event from the movie and build a theme park ride or setting around it. A path through all the rides would be worked out for guests to "experience", with each guest party guided through the whole course by a guide dressed up as the Terminator complete with toy gun and phony Schwarzenegger accent. Guests were charged a token fee to cover for the cost of the booze, and at every station, they would be given a shot of tequila prior to riding our park rides. Needless to say, most guests come out pretty sloshed at the end, and needless to say, females were our most preferred guests.

This annual one day event was to be held at the basement of the residence cafeteria, with my team assigned to be the very first station at the south western corner of the hall. The implication of this was that people entering our ride would be sober having only taken their first shot of tequila. This mean that we could really go crazy with our design to make a really great ride with minimal fear of people throwing up and soiling our station. However, this also meant that there wouldn't be any half drunk girls to "assist" into or out of their seats, much to the disappointment of some of the guys. Nevertheless, despite this great set back to their more nefarious plans, we stoically soldiered on.

The Engineers in our group such as myself, were tasked to draw up the initial plans, although, how much "engineering" a 1st year student like me could input was highly debatable. We had picked an interesting but difficult assembly, having chosen to recreate the scene in which the Police van where Sarah Connor and her protector were driving in, overturns during a highway chase with the Terminator. The "van" we built, needed to safely seat 4--5 people, roll down rollercoaster rails and then somehow, tip over to fall onto its side, sliding to a stop where the back doors of the "van" would then open for the guests to continue to the next station. It had to be safe, reliable, robust and easy enough to be reset over and over again for group after group of guests to ride.

We considered all sorts of designs and finally settled onto a simple large box for the "van", mounted onto wheels. These wheels were then set into tracks made up of pvc pipes cut lengthwise like two channels on a wooden frame. This was to be our "rollercoaster" portion of the ride. A raised concrete stage at our end of the hall was used as the starting platform from which the two rails would start. In order to tip the "van", the two rails, starting out parallel to each other would then be twisted, one rail straight while the other gradually sloping downwards until at about 2 to 3 metres away, the rails were at a 45 degree angle to each other. We tested and tested this, playing with the heights of the rails until we were confident we could get the "van" to fall at exactly the same spot every single time. This was important if we wanted to avoid injury to our guests. At that exact point below and to the side of the rails where the "van" was to fall, we placed a flat trolley with a mattress on it to cushion the fall of the van. No rails were built this time, instead we planned to use the original forward momentum of the initial rollercoaster to continue moving after it landed onto the trolley. When the ride was in motion, we would be standing around the fall area to ensure the "van" falls properly onto the mattress. The seats in the "van" were arranged along only one side of the box with rope handholds on the opposite side so that when the "van" tips over, the guests would all fall onto their backs and not hurt themselves. The trolley would be allowed to coast to a stop a further 1 to 2 metres before another "Terminator" would open the door and extract the guests who were now laying on their backs, out of the "van". The station was reset for the next set of guests by us having assigned roles, 3-4 guys to lift the "van" back onto the rails and push it back to the starting position while another guy would check the mattress and reposition the trolley to the fall position. The Resident Advisors took an interest in our station, coming over to watch our work frequently, possibly because of the concern over safety as the whole "van" would drop a full metre from the top of the stage to the trolley on the ground, with the tipping point a drop of as much as a foot. They insisted we test and retest the whole assembly to their satisfaction before it was opened to the public.

We spent so much time in the construction that we barely had time to see what the other teams did but from the one time I took a break to run through the whole sequence myself, what I found was pretty amazing. The stations ranged from a simple "Mexican tequila bar" which incidently was the very next station after ours, to a cage suspended on a cable strung across the ceiling of the hall where guests would ride a "helicopter" to the other side, and a waste-land war zone with strobe lights and other lighting effects. Black curtains were used to block off the individual areas so that guests could not see what was coming next, allowing the "Terminators" to dictate the pace and sequence of things.

We were all very excited when D-day arrived and the first batch of giggling girls were led to our station by an overly enthusiastic "Terminator". Bundling them through the "van" door, the only part of the van they could see past the curtain, the guests were settled into their seats, strictly warned to keep their backs straight up against the "van" wall, and cautioned against moving around while the ride was in motion. Then with much anxiety, the guys on the floor behind the curtain released the van.

The screams were simply lovely. At the tipping point, the "van" fell off the rails beautifully, settling with a dull thud onto the mattress as the trolley took over, the sound of its wheels squeaking rather convincingly like that of a real vehicle screeching on its side. We let out our collective breaths as the "Terminator" quickly opened the door to very puzzled and confused girls.

"Huh, was that supposed to happen?"

"Did the ride break?"

We wanted to laugh. If they were asking such questions, it was working perfectly!

To the credit of the "Terminator" he played his part beautifully, fulfilling his role to the hilt, gesturing for the girls to exit the "crashed van", "Come quickly. There's been an explosion. Your van has taken a hit and has crashed."

Still looking wildly around, the smiles returned quickly enough as they were bundled past the next curtain into the next station, the "Mexican bar" and given their second shot of Tequila. They were out of our minds by then as we were already lifting the "van" back onto the tracks, resetting it for the next group who's excited chatter could already be heard behind our curtain.

This went on the whole evening, some guests coming back for seconds, paying their entrance fees again and again, and getting progressively more and more drunk. The screams never failing to come whenever the "van" made its 1 foot drop and we still got the occasional confused look and odd query but we were pros by now, not even batting an eyelid, like a well oiled Formula One Pit Crew muscling our "van" back up as yet another group of guests awaited their turn on our rollercoaster.