Wings and Waves Waterpark in McMinnville, Oregon announced the opening of the first VRSlide on the West Coast over the Fourth of July weekend. The attraction was designed and installed by Ballast Technologies and marks the 7^th Virtual Reality enabled Waterslide in the world to be commissioned by Ballast. Launching from inside the fusalage of a real Evergreen Boeing 747 on the roof of the indoor waterpark, the Sonic Boom waterslide is the first of its kind to be upgraded with virtual reality technology.

“We’re so excited to open the new VRSlide experience for our guests and to be the first installation for Ballast on the West Coast” said Cathy Lawson, General Manager of Wings and Waves Waterpark. “We are particularly excited about the new content Ballast created specifically for our theme and park, which celebrates the magic of aviation.”

The Ballast team created custom content for Wings and Waves called “Flight”, the first of its kind anywhere in the world.

“Our newest VRSlide is basically a water slide on steroids,” said Atlas Roufas, Chief Content Officer. “Imagine flying next to the Blue Angel’s fighter squadron and various other aircrafts in “Flight” or shooting through a wormhole to the other side of galaxy in “Space” or flying alongside “Dragons” in our fantasy adventure. All while twisting and turning down an exciting water slide. The guest can choose from a different theme each ride.”

While half of the slide is a fully enclosed flume that soars over the roof of the building, the other half is an open flume with dramatic turns that snake through the inside of the park. This indoor/outdoor combination required new technology to mount Ballast’s VRSlide sensors, which are the industry-leading solution to syncronize VR content with guests speed as they ride down the slide. Ballast also pioneered brand new custom content to fit the park’s aviation theme, resulting in a thrilling and unique VRSlide experience.

“Having portions of the slide outdoors and other portions indoors meant we had two different

types of sensor system installation processes,” commented Manuel Ferrer-Herrera, VP of Engineering at Ballast. “The choreography of lifts and team members around existing structures and slides from ground level to 50’ in the air created challenges and opportunities for creating new mounting technology. It was a tremendous challenge that we pulled off thanks to the dedication and coordination of the W&W team. Together, we raised the bar of Virtual Reality on waterslides once again.”

Ballast has other new installations to announce later this summer. Ballast Technologies is the world leader in Hyper Immersive Experiences for waterparks, which includes VRSlide for waterslides and DIVR for pools.

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