The original version of this ride began with guests in their ride vehicles “floating” in the clouds and approaching a strange flying machine called a Dream Mobile with a cheerful old man as its pilot. He introduced himself as the Dreamfinder and said that he used his vehicle to collect dreams and ideas to create all sorts of new things. From a figment of his imagination he created a playful purple dinosaur with orange wings. Appropriately named Figment, the little dinosaur came up with enough ideas to fill the Dream Mobile’s idea bag. Guests were then taken on a winding journey through scenes representing the creation of art, literature, and scientific discoveries. At the end, Dreamfinder told Figment and the audience that imagination is our key to unlock the hidden wonders of our world.

The Imagination ride vehicle was built like a ski lift bench suspended from a tubular track and powered by drive motors and wheels riding on the track. The vehicle could rotate so the guests faced the scene they were passing. At one point, Figment and Dreamfinder were mounted on a turntable whose rotation speed matched that of the ride vehicle as it circled around the turntable, thus keeping them directly in front of the guests. It was a real challenge to find a way of controlling motor noise and the wheel squeal from these overhead mechanical sources.

We developed an enclosure that formed a continuous tunnel surrounding the entire track, including the motors and wheels. It was box shaped at the top with a V-shaped bottom where the support pipe passed though a slot. This opening was sealed with heavy half inch thick flaps of flexible vinyl on either side. As the pipe passed through, they opened and then fell together at the top to reseal the enclosure. The enclosure also formed a duct for air, making it convenient for cooling the motors. Periodic maintenance stations were positioned along the track to service the motors.

The show scenes were built within large rooms that had small openings in the walls between them to control audio bleed. HVAC and reverberant noise were controlled using well known techniques.