Artist Daniel de Bruin has created a 7 meter (23 ft) high thrill ride that spins at speeds determined by sensors attached to the person strapped in. The Neurotransmitter 3000 gets faster or slower depending on heart rate and muscle tension readings, or as the maker himself put it "the machine reacts to my body and my body to the machine. It's a loop within a loop."
de Bruin says the idea for the ride came to him after completing work on a mechanical 3D printer he dubbed This new technology. "I combined a childhood dream and the desire as a maker to become one with my work to develop the Neurotransmitter 3000."
The rider climbs into a seat attached to the end of a long arm that itself is mounted to a pipe scaffold frame. A heart rate sensor is clipped to the ear and muscle tension sensors attached to the user's left arm. The machine also takes rider orientation into account. de Bruin told us that there's also a body temperature sensor in the setup, but the current iteration of the ride doesn't make use of the data.
The ride's counterweighted seat is where all the data is collected before being wirelessly transmitted to a computer running software that stacks it up against speed presets. The computer then sends instructions to the machine's motor controller and the fun begins.
"On my left arm I have the sensor that slows down the speed of the motor that controls the big rotation, at my right hand I have control over the small rotation with a manual brake," de Bruin told us. "The muscle sensor activates mostly when I grab my seat if I'm scared or just when I want to slow down a bit I contract my arm muscles."
At the start of the ride, de Bruin has found that his heart rate is quite high so the machine begins by turning slowly to ease him in. When the heart rate begins to drop, the machine picks up speed. "The machine goes full speed when my heart rate is around 80," he explained.
If the readings indicate that de Bruin is getting scared or nauseous, the motor slows the rotation automatically. And if the heart rate tops 130, the ride is halted. "I do hit 170 sometimes when i become super dizzy," he revealed.
The vomit-inducing spin ride sure look like fun, as you can see in the video below.
Source: Daniel de Bruin