WEBVTT - How Water Slides Work 0:00:01.360 --> 0:00:04.840 Welcome to you Stuff you should know Frondhouse stuff works 0:00:04.840 --> 0:00:13.560 dot Com. Hey, I'm welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:17.240 There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry slowing us down. 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:22.080 And this is stuff you should know the podcast. That's right. 0:00:22.239 --> 0:00:26.280 The water slide addition. Yeah, man, you like water slides. 0:00:26.640 --> 0:00:33.519 Who doesn't? Nobody? Pretty much? Water slides are point man. 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:35.640 I used to go to uh Whitewater here in Atlanta 0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:38.600 growing up. I haven't been in years and years to 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:41.440 a water park. Yeah. I would like to go, though, 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:44.160 Oh you're gonna go again. Yeah. I mean I don't 0:00:44.159 --> 0:00:46.320 know the Whitewater because I don't know if it's any good. 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:48.040 I mean, it was great when I was a kid, 0:00:48.080 --> 0:00:49.919 but now that I'm adults, I'm a little more discerning 0:00:49.920 --> 0:00:52.680 with my needs. I see, you know, reading about some 0:00:52.680 --> 0:00:55.120 of these water parks, I'm like, they're really doing it right. Yeah, 0:00:55.360 --> 0:00:58.360 like the one in Kansas City. Yeah, what's it called 0:00:59.080 --> 0:01:01.400 the well? I think it's a German name, isn't it. Yeah, 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:05.760 um schlitterband. And you know why it's German? Why because 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:09.560 German invented the water sign. Okay, I was looking this up. 0:01:09.600 --> 0:01:13.319 I was looking all over for the first water slide. Um, 0:01:13.360 --> 0:01:15.880 I think I found it. I want to hear all right, 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:19.120 And it was fairly recent too, Like I thought water 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:23.760 slides probably the four hundreds. Yeah, this is what I 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:27.160 would have guessed. Nope, I was way off. Well, this 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:30.000 one article I found says that the very first time 0:01:30.040 --> 0:01:35.600 people did this was people aqueduct workers in Rome and Egypt. 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:38.000 They would, you know, to get from one point to another, 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:42.400 quicker would just slide down the aqueduct. Very smart. So 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:44.679 they think that's where the idea may have come from. 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:47.680 But well, there's also plenty. There's a lot of natural 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:52.120 water slides around the world to um that people take advare. 0:01:52.440 --> 0:01:56.160 So I would imagine it started out like even maybe 0:01:56.200 --> 0:02:00.880 before then. Yeah, where someone finally said though, hey, this 0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:03.200 is nido, I can make money off of it, and 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:06.200 let's build one just for this purpose. And what I 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:11.519 found was nineteen three with Herbert selna Um, who was 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:17.760 actually an American. I thought he was German. Um. Uh, well, 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:22.639 this was in Minnesota. You invented the water toboggan slide 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:24.519 and they got to use it two days out of 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:27.320 the year. Um. And I think it was more it 0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:30.520 was a sled type deal. And then I saw one 0:02:30.560 --> 0:02:33.119 in England or in the nineteen thirties or so, where 0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:34.480 it was the same deal. It was like a little 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:38.200 flat bottomed boat that you know, you in England they 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:40.000 still had on their full they weren't even like in 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:43.600 bading gear. They're like in there, they're full suits and 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:46.919 monocles and frocks sitting in this boat. So it's basically 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:48.400 a little flat bottom boat that would go down to 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:51.119 slide and then skitter across the water like the log 0:02:51.240 --> 0:02:54.080 ride or something like that. Yeah, that's that's the water slide, 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:57.040 except way more dangerous, I would guess, because it's the 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:02.680 uh yeah, exactly. So I thought the providence was even 0:03:02.720 --> 0:03:05.239 more recent than that. I thought it was the nineteen seventies. 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:08.400 Well that's where the water park was born. Okay. I 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:12.440 ran across mentions of water slides, original water slides in 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:16.399 the United States from like the seventies the earliest I found. Well, 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:18.960 you'll find the Minnesota one. You didn't find the Minnesota 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:21.840 Well here's did you read that story? The history of 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:24.440 water parks? Yeah? Man, you came up with this great 0:03:24.560 --> 0:03:28.000 article from grant Land, which is a publication that has 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:31.560 some really good long form articles, but this one in 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:35.320 particular was really cool. Uh. And it is what is 0:03:35.320 --> 0:03:37.920 it called? Do you remember the wet stuff that we 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:41.200 have a play on the right stuff? Yeah, like the 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:47.680 original astronauts of water parks. Well, in this case, um 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:51.640 George Malay in nineteen seventy four was sort of the 0:03:51.680 --> 0:03:57.800 inventor and main thief that built the water park by 0:03:58.000 --> 0:03:59.760 stealing a bunch and this out. Now there were water 0:03:59.760 --> 0:04:02.600 slide because he would travel all over the country and 0:04:02.600 --> 0:04:05.480 they'll be like, oh, there's this concrete water slide, but 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:07.240 that was all it was at the time. It was 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:11.560 like this hill with like three curvy concrete slides cut 0:04:11.600 --> 0:04:13.640 into the side of it. Yeah, and you heard chuck right, 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:17.400 he just said concrete. The original man made water slides 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:20.960 were made of concrete. Yes, I've been on those. Did 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:23.760 it not like tear your skin up? No, it was 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:27.040 really Yeah, it's like a concrete swimming pool. Um, yeah, 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:29.200 which I mean like if you ever come in contact 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:32.159 with the bottom of it, it hurts. Well. No, there's 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:34.640 a lot of water first of all, and then these 0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:37.400 are the ones you needed the little mat to sit on. Okay, 0:04:37.440 --> 0:04:40.760 that makes sense. It's gonna stay like you just stand 0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:43.479 up in the bottom of your swimming trus to be 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:47.800 totally shredded. So Malay had the original idea when he 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:52.839 went to a wave pool um in Alabama and said 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:55.680 this is awesome. He would see a water slide and 0:04:55.720 --> 0:04:57.760 say that is awesome. He would see like a little 0:04:57.800 --> 0:05:00.680 kid's water thing, say that is awesome. Him, let's bring 0:05:00.680 --> 0:05:03.159 it all together. Let's bring it all together. And then 0:05:03.680 --> 0:05:05.840 he was the guy who made Wet and Wild. Yeah. 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:09.240 Well he was originally of the creator sea World and 0:05:09.240 --> 0:05:12.279 then left the Sea World in nineteen seventy four. Who's 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:15.160 fourced out? Yeah. I get the feeling that he was 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:18.039 not an easy guy to work with. No Supposedly in 0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:21.000 this Grantland article, supposedly his he had red hair and 0:05:21.080 --> 0:05:23.520 his face would get just as red when he'd start yelling, 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:26.880 which was a lot. Yeah. So he said, let's bring 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:30.640 this all together. Um, let's go um Inland to where 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:33.279 people don't have access to beaches and things, which makes 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:39.039 sense human maide beaches. Yeah, with these wave pools and uh. 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:42.760 He was rebuffed by investors at first because they were like, 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:46.520 no one's gonna pay the swim you big dummy. Yeah, 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:49.560 that's really stupid idea. Yeah, that was like the initial 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:52.200 response that he got. Yeah, and like I can kind 0:05:52.200 --> 0:05:54.120 of understand that no one had ever tried it before. 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:57.120 Swimming and bathing was one of those things that like 0:05:57.200 --> 0:05:59.240 you just went to the beach and it was free. Yeah, 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:02.159 So the idea of bringing the beach to people was 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:05.080 kind of lost on on the early investors, not all 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:07.480 of them. He managed to raise like three million bucks. Yeah, 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:10.160 or they'd be like community pools and things, but not 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:14.159 like a theme park, just without without roller coasters and rides. 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:18.000 People thought he was nuts, so he built it anyway. 0:06:18.120 --> 0:06:21.719 In Orlando. He called it Wet and Wild um, because 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:23.560 he said, apparently in a meeting, I want it, it's 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:25.800 gotta be the name's gotta be wet and wild, and 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:28.040 they're like, how about that. We're ready to go home 0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:32.240 pretty much even yelling at us all day. Um. The 0:06:32.279 --> 0:06:35.240 center piece of Wet and Wild was the wave pool. Yeah, 0:06:35.279 --> 0:06:37.640 which you know it's like that that well, it's a 0:06:37.640 --> 0:06:40.080 wave pool. It's a pool that creates waves, which was 0:06:40.120 --> 0:06:42.640 a huge deal. And that's the one that's what he 0:06:42.640 --> 0:06:45.760 saw Indicatur Alabama vour right, that's the thing that kicked 0:06:45.800 --> 0:06:48.400 it all off, and like you said, it was the centerpiece. 0:06:48.440 --> 0:06:51.040 So when you came into Wet and Wild in Orlando 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:55.520 on International Drive, um, that was the first thing you saw, 0:06:55.960 --> 0:06:57.960 and it was meant to kind of bull you over 0:06:58.000 --> 0:07:00.920 a little bit, like, oh my gosh, it's a it's 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:05.400 a human made beach. Trying to discontinue my use of 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:07.920 man made by the way. Oh really, Yeah, sure, it's 0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:11.200 really easy to say too, because you grow you grow 0:07:11.280 --> 0:07:14.840 up saying that, but yeah, human made it's harder to say. 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:18.360 It's harder to remember. So I'm training myself. Good job. 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:21.120 I'm gonna start that too now. But you're gonna say 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:26.200 human made, right, maybe you and Terry Gross So uh, 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:28.560 the the idea was pretty great, but it didn't take 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:31.000 off at first. Um he lost about four grand in 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:34.960 his first year because people were used to roller coaster 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:37.920 parks and they were used to go go, go, go 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:40.680 go at those things. He was trying to talk parents 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:43.960 into kicking back on the lounge chair by the wave 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:49.720 pool while the kids partied, and the parents were like yeah. 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:51.360 The parents who went though were like this is kind 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:55.200 of awesome, actually yeah, But getting them there at first 0:07:55.360 --> 0:08:00.360 was a lot harder than he anticipated. Yeah. Um. He 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:03.400 figured out though that there was kind of a too 0:08:04.400 --> 0:08:08.880 to a dual attractiveness to um a water park depending 0:08:08.920 --> 0:08:11.640 on your age. So like, if you're a teenager, you 0:08:11.680 --> 0:08:16.360 wanted something fast and scary and fun and sure, sure, 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:19.880 but you wanted something that you wanted thrills and spills 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:23.120 and chills. Right, if you're a parent, by the time 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:26.640 you're at this place, it's probably very hot. You've probably 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:31.640 already been to Disney World or whatever, and you are tired, 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:34.520 worn out, but your kids still has tons of energy, 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:36.959 so they're running around. You don't feel like running around. 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:38.920 You feel like sitting in a way pool, You feel 0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:41.600 like sitting on a lounge chair, or you feel like 0:08:41.679 --> 0:08:43.440 and this is an idea he ripped off from I 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:47.599 think um Sri Lanka or something like that river, the 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:50.480 lazy river that was the stroke of genius. It seems 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:54.720 like that apparently sealed the fate of wet and wild 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:57.640 was introducing this lazy river where you don't even have 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:00.120 to propel yourself. You just get in this river or 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:03.959 and you're gently pushed along by the current, along and along, 0:09:04.200 --> 0:09:07.080 and you can just chill out and not think about 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:09.480 anything in the nice cool water on a hot day 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:14.600 in Orlando. Yeah, and apparently when he had stole that idea, Um, 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:18.960 the guys, the humans building this thing, was like, well, yeah, 0:09:19.000 --> 0:09:20.520 well we can build a river like you get in 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:21.880 one and get out the other. And he's like, no, 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:25.240 no, no no, no, this thing is fully enclosed. You never 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:26.920 have to get out if you don't want to write. 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:29.160 He's like, do I have to explain the concept of 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:33.320 infinity to you? So they build it shaped like the 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:36.080 infinity signer got fired. But and yeah, because in the 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:40.679 middle they'd all just bumped together. They glutinated traffic jam. 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:44.720 So I mentioned him stealing. Uh, everyone was stealing because 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:47.679 after this water parks started opening up. It was the seventies. 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:50.640 Everybody was stealing. Yeah, all over the country. And they 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:53.840 they stole their names. Like every water park in the 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:57.960 world has the same like twenty words over and over 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:00.760 to describe their rides, and they all just from each other, 0:10:01.400 --> 0:10:05.800 like flumes and raging and wild and splash and storm 0:10:05.840 --> 0:10:11.680 and typhoon or in his case, the Kama Kaze. Well, yeah, 0:10:11.720 --> 0:10:14.200 that was the first really big in the States, at 0:10:14.240 --> 0:10:18.439 least I think he stole it from somewhere overseas from Japan. 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:21.920 Actually it was Japan, that's try, which is appropriate and 0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:24.800 highly inappropriate to have named it the kama Kaze then, 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:29.560 but he uh. It was the the first really tall 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:32.440 water slide in the United States. And the way that 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:34.600 it was allowed to be made really tall is because 0:10:34.720 --> 0:10:38.880 he used fiberglass, which revolutionized water parks because again they 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:42.960 would use skin shredding concrete that had some real serious 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:45.880 like structural limitations, like you had to build it into 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:48.440 a hill. She had to build build a hill, and 0:10:48.480 --> 0:10:50.480 then you had to build the water slide into the hill. 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:53.240 With fiberglass, it was like just build straight up into 0:10:53.240 --> 0:10:55.560 the air and you're fine, Yeah, it's pretty cool. Yeah, 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:58.199 and the Kamikaze was the first one. Plus they built 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:00.040 it and situated it in a water park in a 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:03.000 way where you could see that thing from miles away, 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:05.880 and it was basically like a beacon, like, come check 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:08.720 this out, you twelve year old crazy person. Yeah, they 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:11.040 call it a skyline feature. It's the same reason that 0:11:11.160 --> 0:11:13.920 the biggest roller coasters are going to be situated near 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:17.800 the highway most times. So it's basically self made advertising 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:21.600 and marketing. Um. So they also found that they could 0:11:21.640 --> 0:11:24.439 make a lot of money doing other things like selling concessions. 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:28.880 And at first they would put the concessions all, you know, 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:31.600 the lockers, because you're not gonna carry on money. But 0:11:31.640 --> 0:11:34.040 then they said in this article that became the mother 0:11:34.080 --> 0:11:36.840 of invention, and they were like, they invented the water wallet. 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:39.680 And they sold a lot of bathing suits because women 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:42.679 would come in their bikinis and get their bikini tops 0:11:42.720 --> 0:11:44.679 thrown off in these some of these rides, So they 0:11:44.679 --> 0:11:47.760 sold a lot of one piece bathing suits once people 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:50.360 got there. Um, and it was kind of genius. They 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:52.520 were making money hand over fist at a certain point. 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:56.240 And this is one of the reasons why I think 0:11:56.240 --> 0:11:59.120 the seventies are possibly the greatest decade of all time. 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:06.400 The water park was established in the seventies. Yeah, so um, 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:12.199 these days there are some really really innovative um slides 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:15.360 going on and we'll talk about those later. Um, first, 0:12:15.440 --> 0:12:16.960 let's take a break and then we'll get back to 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:38.440 like how water slides actually work. So, Chuck, I promised physics, 0:12:38.440 --> 0:12:42.760 and we're going to deliver on physics. If you have 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:46.840 listened to our roller Coaster episode, you'll probably get a 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:49.800 lot of this. But the basic premise between a roller 0:12:49.840 --> 0:12:52.600 coaster and a person on a water slide is virtually 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:55.560 the same thing. Like when you're on a water slide, 0:12:56.640 --> 0:12:58.520 you have when you're at the top of you're just 0:12:58.559 --> 0:13:01.240 sitting there, you like a slinky, have a lot of 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:04.640 potential energy, and then once you shove off, that potential 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:09.760 energy is translated into kinetic energy and gravity starts to 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:13.360 pull you downward. That's right. And when you're traveling on 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:17.400 a relatively straight slope, the force of gravity pushing down 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:20.400 on your body is counteracted by the force of the 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:24.360 slide pushing up, and you're you're going kind of slow. Sure, 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:27.120 but if you take that slide and move it more 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:31.280 from the horizontal to the vertical, it's still pushing you forward, 0:13:31.320 --> 0:13:35.559 but it's not counteracting gravity any longer. It's just basically 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:40.400 allowing you to drop very quickly from a high place 0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:45.400 to a lower place. Yeah, and uh aided the whole time. Um, well, 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:48.800 I guess combating friction, you're aided by the water. Of course, 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:52.040 that's gonna help the friction not take hold and you 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:55.320 won't scrape your little bottom on the concrete water slide 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:57.560 any longer because they're sending tons and tons of water 0:13:58.480 --> 0:14:02.280 constantly down these water slide. Yes, And the the higher 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:05.880 the drop and the steeper the grade, the less friction 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:08.839 is allowed to generate because the less the slide is 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:13.160 counteracting directly the force of gravity. So you can get 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:15.360 going pretty quick. Yeah, And I remember on some of 0:14:15.360 --> 0:14:19.360 these tall slides that would have like a big drop 0:14:19.480 --> 0:14:22.680 and then a little small hill, like I remember leaving 0:14:23.240 --> 0:14:27.040 my butt leaving the slide. The concrete sly Yeah mean, no, no, 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:29.200 this is but when they were fiber class at this point. 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:33.320 But um, yeah, like zero friction because I'm airborne slightly. 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:36.680 And they had missteps along the way, like sending kids 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:41.320 off into the world, launching them from these water slides. 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:46.120 And so they especially with the Serpentine slide, which all 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:49.200 of a sudden you have angles introduced to the physics 0:14:49.880 --> 0:14:53.000 um and curves and inertia, and so they realized, we 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:56.040 gotta build these walls up pretty high on some of 0:14:56.040 --> 0:14:59.640 these curves because your inertia, you're working against your own inertia. 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:02.560 It's take in one direction and then boom, you're taking 0:15:02.600 --> 0:15:05.000 a hard left turn. Your body still wants to go 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:08.920 that direction exactly. Slide says no, no, you're going this 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:11.280 way now, so it adds a whole other sensation to it, 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:15.360 not just the downward fall, but a change in velocity too. Yeah. 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:17.800 So they raised these side walls and then eventually some 0:15:17.880 --> 0:15:20.720 of them were so extreme that they just said that 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:23.160 you were you have to be in a tube altogether, right, 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:27.480 completely enclosed, which is also a feature, like they have 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:30.480 something that have like, uh, well it'll be dark and 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:32.600 they'll have lights inside the tube and you know they've 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:34.760 got seat them up over the years, right, they clean 0:15:34.840 --> 0:15:38.400 up real nice. So, um, well, that's pretty much the 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:41.360 physics of water slides. There's not a whole lot else 0:15:41.400 --> 0:15:43.960 to know about it. Well, there's the water break. That's 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:47.720 another feature. Okay, so you made mention of like, um, 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:51.240 people being thrown all over the place. There's a story 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:55.160 in that grant Land article where George Malay was showing, um, 0:15:55.200 --> 0:15:58.120 I guess an investor or something like that, this new 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:01.200 slide and had one of his teen age employees go 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:04.600 down the slide and at the bottom of the slide, 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:08.600 um the collecting pool. Well before the collecting pool are 0:16:08.640 --> 0:16:10.480 supposed to be a dip which is filled with water 0:16:10.560 --> 0:16:12.640 and that serves as the water break. And then you've 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:15.800 got the collecting pool, the place where you spill out into, 0:16:16.000 --> 0:16:18.800 and that's supposed to slow you down even further. Apparently 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:22.040 the design of this slide was such that this little 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:25.280 teenage kid wasn't really slowed down with the water break 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:28.680 and skipped across the collecting pool onto the concrete in 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:32.480 front of the investor who's like, Um, I don't think 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:34.280 that's supposed to happen, right, You may want to check 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:37.200 your numbers. Yeah, I think that may have been a 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:42.440 sled maybe not a sled slide. Well, with a sled slide, 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:45.000 you would guess that there's even less friction. You know, 0:16:45.240 --> 0:16:47.720 you need to have a longer water break going on. 0:16:47.840 --> 0:16:50.440 But the cool thing about the water break is that 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:54.320 was invented by somebody who's actually one of the foremost 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:59.960 water slide designers working today, guy named Jeff Henry. Jeff 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:04.520 Henry's family owned like a campground in the sixties, I 0:17:04.600 --> 0:17:08.440 think Texas in Texas, and um, one of the things 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:10.920 they had going for this campground, because you know those 0:17:10.960 --> 0:17:14.880 are usually pretty boring places, was a slide, A regular slide, yes, 0:17:15.200 --> 0:17:17.960 from the second floor. I think of one of the 0:17:18.000 --> 0:17:21.400 cabins down, not a water slide at this point, um, 0:17:21.520 --> 0:17:26.920 until Jeff added the water break feature and that became 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:30.400 like a standard feature for all water slides. Started out 0:17:30.400 --> 0:17:32.520 on a regular slide. Yeah, And he's the guy that 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:35.200 basically saw what Malay was doing and said I can 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:38.840 Like he wasn't too impressed with Malay and said, I 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:40.199 see what you're doing, but I can do this a 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:42.720 lot better. And I think his parks today are some 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:45.360 of the coolest ones. Right. Well, yeah, he's working. Um. 0:17:45.760 --> 0:17:49.760 He co owns um the one in Kansas City, the 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:51.640 one with the German name. Yeah, I don't know why 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:55.840 the name won't stick in my head. Schlitterbon, Schlitterbon. You 0:17:55.880 --> 0:18:00.280 don't know why that doesn't stick. I mean it's so memorable, sure, 0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:04.880 schliter bond Uh. That's the one that has the tallest 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:07.840 one in the world now, right, Yeah, So the tallest 0:18:07.880 --> 0:18:10.679 one in the world is called or, which is German 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:13.760 for crazier insane. And how high is it? A hundred 0:18:13.800 --> 0:18:17.199 and sixty eight feet and seven inches tall. The second 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:21.119 place one is called Kilimanjaro. It's in Brazil. It's a 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:25.040 hundred and sixty four The third one is also in Brazil. 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:29.000 It's called Insano. It's a hundred and thirty five ft 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:32.440 that's really tall. Man. Oh yeah, do they have little 0:18:32.480 --> 0:18:34.120 elevators for those? Do you know? Are you? I think 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:37.760 you have to climb, which makes the whole thing even scarier. 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:40.600 Really yeah, that's to me the worst part about the 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:43.560 water park is, uh, the and it even puts it 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:46.480 this way in this article. The potential energy is you 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:51.440 climbing steps. That's how you develop the potential energy. And 0:18:51.480 --> 0:18:54.000 the higher up you go, the higher you climb, the 0:18:54.119 --> 0:18:56.800 more potential energy you have, which means the more is 0:18:56.880 --> 0:18:59.919 released in transferred to kinetic, which is scary, but you're right, 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:02.000 it does built up like as you go. I imagine 0:19:02.040 --> 0:19:04.520 you're like, man, I've climbed a lot of steps here, 0:19:04.840 --> 0:19:08.120 I can see really really far. One of the cool 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:10.080 things about that grant Land article too, by the way, 0:19:10.160 --> 0:19:12.959 Chuck is at the top. Rather than a photo, they 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:16.160 have like a gift that's a p o V video 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:19.680 of going down. It's pretty neat and I believe that 0:19:19.840 --> 0:19:23.159 is also one that uses is that a water coaster? 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:27.200 So that is the latest and greatest um feature going 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:30.399 is Someone at some point said it was probably uh, 0:19:30.680 --> 0:19:33.800 what's his name, Jeff? Jeff did he invent the water coaster? 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:36.520 He said, you know, this is neat, but it would 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:38.680 be really neat if you go up and down and 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:43.480 you didn't just uh go down and stop and maybe 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:45.720 a little hill here and there. But he invented I 0:19:45.760 --> 0:19:49.520 guess the water uh was it called the water cannon, 0:19:50.760 --> 0:19:55.000 water blaster, the water blaster, which is exactly what you think. 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:56.840 It's a lot of water when you start to go 0:19:56.960 --> 0:20:00.520 up that hill to shoot you up that hill, right, 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:03.040 it's it's um, you know, like the chains that clink 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:06.320 you up on a roller coaster. It serves the exact 0:20:06.400 --> 0:20:10.560 same purpose. So uh with the addition of these water 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:14.760 blasters that that move you along, um, it's just completely 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:18.920 opened up the field of of water slides. It's just 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:22.720 no longer using gravity to push you down. So um, 0:20:23.000 --> 0:20:26.800 chuck with with a water slide like it's This article 0:20:26.880 --> 0:20:29.879 makes a pretty good analogy that when you build a 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:32.879 water slide, you're basically it's the same process as putting 0:20:32.920 --> 0:20:37.879 together like a matchbox track. It's the them the fiber 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:41.360 last pieces are designed. For the most part, there's companies 0:20:41.400 --> 0:20:46.480 that design water slides. Four water parks. Rare is the 0:20:46.560 --> 0:20:49.719 water park that designs its own slides. But Jeff Henry 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:54.880 and um the co his co owner of um Schlitterbond 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:58.119 in Kansas City. Yeah, what is the guy's name? Do 0:20:58.240 --> 0:21:01.240 they design these together? Yes, John John School, he's the 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:03.719 co owner's name. So they'll dream it up and then 0:21:03.800 --> 0:21:06.439 work with another company who will actually put it together 0:21:06.840 --> 0:21:10.040 or build it and then put it together. These two, yeah, 0:21:10.160 --> 0:21:12.080 they do their own designs, but for the most part 0:21:12.119 --> 0:21:14.120 of you in a water park or something, you'll contract 0:21:14.160 --> 0:21:17.480 out the whole thing, design, building, implementation, all that stuff 0:21:17.680 --> 0:21:19.160 a fun job. But this is one of the things 0:21:19.200 --> 0:21:23.680 that makes these two um some of the foremost designers 0:21:23.760 --> 0:21:27.240 is because they're they're not only owners of water parks, 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:29.920 they're designing it themselves. They're testing it out themselves, and 0:21:30.040 --> 0:21:33.160 they're really putting a lot of thought into the water 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:35.640 features that they're coming up with. Let's spend his life 0:21:35.680 --> 0:21:38.720 since the sixties, you know, Yeah, this is passion alright. 0:21:38.760 --> 0:21:42.000 So like you said, they are dozens and dozens of 0:21:42.240 --> 0:21:46.399 fiberglass pieces that just fit together. Like you said, like 0:21:46.440 --> 0:21:49.159 a little car track, you gotta raise lip on one 0:21:49.240 --> 0:21:51.719 end and a little sunken step and just slide them 0:21:51.760 --> 0:21:55.240 together and bolt them together boom, And what you want 0:21:55.400 --> 0:21:58.879 is to have a very smooth um single slide feel 0:21:58.920 --> 0:22:01.760 to that on your autom half. Yes, you know, once 0:22:01.800 --> 0:22:04.439 you're butt like bumping against every you know, every time 0:22:04.480 --> 0:22:07.359 there's a new section and then you have some steel 0:22:07.440 --> 0:22:09.600 that holds the thing up and there you go. You've 0:22:09.640 --> 0:22:14.240 got the world's tallest water slide. Um. One of the things, though, 0:22:14.800 --> 0:22:18.119 besides physical harm that you have to combat as a 0:22:18.160 --> 0:22:22.960 water park owner is also p Yeah. Sure, have you 0:22:23.040 --> 0:22:25.600 ever seen that South Park or the water the water 0:22:25.760 --> 0:22:29.920