Amusement park in France

Attraction. This word is one of the most important words in the tourism industry. After all, without any attractions the tourists will not start their journey. Where there are no any tourist attractions, those places probably will not be real tourist destinations.

Several kinds of attractions can be distinguished, but now I want to focus specifically on the theme parks. Personally, I really like the theme parks, amusement parks.

While I was looking for articles for my blog, I found a very interesting theme park in France. This amusement park is located in Nantes city, in an abandoned shipyard. The tourists have been welcomed here since 2007.

In this park the tourists can try out robot animals. The metal and wood robots were designed by  French artists called Francois Delarozire and Pierre Orefice. They got their inspiration from Verne’s science-fiction stories, which include a lot of inventions. Apart from Verne they were inspired by works of Leonardo Da Vinci and last but  not  least, by Nantes city's industrial history.

There are several mechanical animals in this amusement park, for example the giant octopus, the pirate fish, the squid and the crab. The most important attraction is the Elephant, what can carry 49 passangers in the same time.

I want to show you four of these animals in details.

The first one is the Elephant:

The mechanical elephant is a-12-meter- high and a-8-meter- wide structure. It is made of 45 tons of wood and steel. It can lift up 49 passengers for a -45- minute- walk.   Furthermore, every part of the Elephant can be controlled: it can walk, it can blink, and it also can squirt water from its nose. The giant elephant is powered by a 450 horsepower motor, 60 cylinders, and 2000 liters of oil, and it includes pulleys and gears.

In this video, we can see how it works:

The second one is the Marine Worlds Carousel:

This 25- meter- tall Marine Worlds Carousel is the park's newest attraction, featuring 24 mechanical waves and there are three levels of rotating sea creatures. This is an authentic 360 degree theatre. The tourist can move together with the strange aquatic robot animals and they are able to guide the movement of the animals.

I would like to show a video about the carousel:

The third interesting machine is the Heron Tree:

It has a-45- meter  diameter and a-28-meter high. At the top there is a garden with two herons. The tourists are allowed  to climb either on the back or the wings of the birds, and the visitors can take a circular flight over the hanging gardens of the tree. After it they can take a walk on  the hanging gardens.

Here is a video about the Heron:

The giant ant is the last robot what I would like to show:

The tourist can drive through the place with this ant. If we want to drive this ant we need 5 people. 4 passengers should  manoeuver on-board  with their legs, and the fifth passenger should control the ant.

Here is a picture about the Giant Ant:

An interesthing idea came to my mind: if there is a park like this La Machine park in Nantes, perhaps we can create a robot animal zoo somewhere in the future. We have  a couple of initiatives in this field, where people can meet the animals' robot replica. In the future it would be great if the kids and of course the adults could learn about  how the robot animal structures work on an interactive and fun way. But in the future we should develop this area and we have to make it even more professional.

In the future I would like to visit a robot zoo, or robot animal park, because according to me it is more entertaining when the people can try out the robots, not just look at  them, the greatest example is in Nantes. Ágota also agreed with me in this subject. She also thinks that it is more fun, if we can try these creatures and we can get more experience.

In my opinion, these parks may have bigger role in the future as a tourist attraction, and maybe it will create new jobs for people.

Robot restaurants

Last week I was talking about the robot hotels and this gave me inspiration about my new topic. So in this week I would like to talk about the robot restaurants.

In the world there are lot of good restaurants with different themes, for example the restaurant can be underwater restaurant, airplane restaurant, prison or hospital restaurant. Or if we really like the space, we can it in the Mars restaurant. So I said there are lot of types of restaurant but we do not have so much real touch with robots yet, so for me interesting restaurant was the full robot restaurant al

So I would like to introduce a chinese restaurant, where the whole staff are robots. We can find this restaurant in Harbin, China. If the owner of the restaurant wants to save money they should use robots because as the boss said in the Chinese robot restaurants, the robots cost as much as an annual salary of a worker. So the robot restaurant have staffs a total of 20 robots as waiters and cooks.

There is a robot front of the door and this robot welcomes customers to the restaurant and directs them to the seating area.

I did not find information about how the people order the food, but I think the best option would be the touchscreen.  For example every table should be a touchscreen part and th guest can enter in the orders. After the system will send information to the robot chef and they will prepare the food.

I have read that these robot chefs are able to cook various styles of dumplings and noodles and usually it takes about 3 minutes to prepare the average order.

After when the food is done, the waitress robots carry the food to customers by following a track. These waitress robots are using sensors, and under the floor there are other sensors so they can connect with each other. Furthermore, every robot has a diferent own sensors, what is helping to avoid obstructions for example if a kid running through the place.

I saw an article about a new generation robot chef:

This robot chef is a pair of robotic hands, which could be set to revolutionise cooking and kitchen tasks. The commercial version of this robot chef will launches in 2017 and it will be able to make 2000 types of food. So the people will select food on their phone and after the robot hands will prepare the food. 

This robot hands uses 20 motors, 24 joints and 129 sensors. This robot wants to create the same range of movements that human hand can make. This is the first fully automated kitchen chef what is exist now, but this version is just the early version of the robot hands. 

The creator want to make an private appstore where the users can download recipes and instructions for the robots, if they purchase for this. In the near future when it will be appear on the market the restaurants can use this all over the world.

Here is a video about the robot hands:

I asked the other hungarians, what are they thinking about this restaurant? Is it looks good, or no? Do you want to try or not?

They said, of course they want to try this restarant because it is funny to see how the robot waitress moving around us. Furthermore, they are curious how the chef can cook the food and they would like to know that, this food also as good as the food what human chefs prepare or not.

Probably,  the number of these restaurants will spread in the world soon.

Hotels in the future

In this week, in my fifth blog, I would like to write about the automated hotels and their appearance in the not remote future.

The most important thing after the transportation is that, we need place where we can sleep and where we can rest. In the future it will be almost the same we can stay in hotels, but these hotels will be automated, and it will be equipped by robots.

I have read some articles on the internet about this topic and I found a japanese hotel. This hotel’s name is Henn-na Hotel and this is laying in the middle of a theme park in Nagasaki, Japan.

The whole hotel will have 72 rooms and, the staff will consist of 7 robots. In addition, the whole building will represent the latest new technology.

Recepcionist: The guest can meet with a japanese lady robots when they go to the front desk. This robot will have human gestures and she also can speak japanese, chinese, korean, and english too.

The robot system in the hotel will include a face recognizer entry system, body temperature detector system will configured to room temperature, robots will welcome the guests, the robots will cleaning the rooms, and not at least they will serve the coffee and foods. Instead of keys, guests facial recognition software can enter their rooms.

Botlr: This robot bellhop can hold standard room service items like toiletries, water bottles, and newspapers, and find its own way to hotel rooms. It can even ride the elevator. When the robot reaches the guest’s door, the system calls the room, alerting the guest to the delivery. camera and other sensors, can recognize that the room door has been opened and then lift the lid on the storage bin that holds the delivery. A touch screen on Botlr will allow guests to give the robot a review.  If the review is positive, the robot will do a small dance before it departs. When it returns to the lobby, Botlr can plug itself into a recharging station.

Here is a video about the robot bellhop :

Of course, energy supply will characterize of this hotel.

The hotel will open on 17. july 2015, so we have to wait for the people’s comments just 5 days.

I asked from Ágota that: "What do you think about the automated hotels. Would you like to stay in a hotel where the staff are robots?"

She answered yes. She would like to stay and she would like to try out this or these hotels in the future, but she thinks that in the first time it can be scary a little bit for her. Ágota thinks it is a good idea and they can save money with it.

I think one or two technological developments can be placed in the room, so that could be a mirror with touch-screen display, where the guests could give their order, and the mirror also could show their messages and it could show the actual weather.

In my opinion,  with these technological developments, we can achieve soon that more hotel like this will be opened around the world in the next decades.

If you have any comments, do not hesitate to write me :)

What was once only a dream is now becoming a reality ?

In this week I decided to write about the change of transportation, because it is the base of tourism. As we know that the tourism industry would not exist without transportation. Transportation has important role of people’s life who wants to see the world, because this is the only way if they want to reach the destinations.  So this area should impoving day to day, as human needs are growing.

So as I said transportation technology is progressing at a much slower pace than some of the other sciences such as information technology.

I have read some articles about that, in the near future, automotive companies will focus on fully automated vehicles where people can enter in or speak the place they want to go to and the vehicle will automatically take them there.  And for me the most important thing what I read in this topic was the space tourism.

In the near future we can travel in to the space by spaceships, so we can say that his is the new way of tourism transporting.

But what is exactly the space tourism? Space tourism is the term used to describe space travel for recreational or leisure purposes. 

Since the beginning of space travel, only 547 humans have traveled above the Earth’s atmosphere and into space.

Virgin Galactic:

The most famous space agency is the Virgin Galactic, so now I would like to introduce a little bit. This company has two vehicles, which can carry people into space. This two is the WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo.

Training:

The most important is security and that passengers are fully trained out of the spacecraft and every moment of the trip. Virgin Galactic offers the opportunity to do astronauts training in the future. They want to provide for their tourist an incredible experience. And not at least, the company is focusing on the fact, that the traveler have to be medically healthy. Each astronaut will take part in three days of pre-flight preparation, bonding, and training onsite at Spaceport America. Pre-flight preparation will ensure that each astronaut is mentally and physically prepared to enjoy every second what they spend in the space.

Passengers would be transported to a height of between 100-160km above earth, experience 3-6 minutes of weightlessness and a view of the stars before being taken back down to earth. This is expected to cost around $200,000-250,000 per person. 

When I think of space travel, my first thought is that, this could be a very exciting journey , but the second thought that comes to mind is whether this thing is safe enough? Would I like to travel to space? Would it be safe? How can I feel in the weightlessness?

I have talked about this with Ágota and she told me some interesting thoughts, about how she sees this topic:

 " I would like to go into space because not everyone can do this and very special. I think what I would enjoy the best is the weightlessness, because it is a really interesting physical thing. But maybe now this is not so safe but if we develope this area and we will focusing on it, it can be a better way for the tourism."

Furthermore, I think maybe in the remote future, we can find a planet where we can live we can breathe and where we can build the same life what we live now here on the Earth.

There is a movie about this topic, if somebody is interested in this. The name of the movie is the Interstellar. I saw this movie and it is really great story, and we can see really good technical solutions in it.

My last video is a little long, but if you want to learn more about this topic and Virgin Galactic you should watch this.  :)