New Water Park Attraction Develops Skills

Problem solving, open communication, and team-building skills are needed when challenging one of the newest water park attractions.

Polin Waterparks recently introduced a new obstacle course named Splash Course, which has varying levels of difficulty and thrills. Kids and adults who desire mild experiences can use easy-to-cross tracks and take their time doing so. Those seeking a more challenging adventure can opt for the added difficulty found on higher levels. The levels not only challenge users, but also provide thrills like jumping over rocks or tightroping across rope bridges.

“Splash Course allows children to determine the level of challenge they’re willing to take on and offers a great variety of courses,” says Söhret Pakis, Polin’s director of marketing and communications. “Kids have to make decisions high above ground and evaluate their abilities correctly. There’s usually more than one user on each stage, and a kid’s action shakes the whole system, affecting their friends. This way, they need to communicate and work as a team to complete the stage or come up with new ideas when a friend is having difficulty.”

Pakis says Polin’s design team consulted the latest developments related to child growth, and proven methods to help develop specific skills are transformed into fun activities incorporated into the product. Splash Course also offers something Pakis says is not often found in water park activities. 

“It differs in the freedom it offers,” she says. “Users have little input in most water park activities. Splash Course, however, allows users to choose the path they want to go, how fast they want to go, or how much time they are going to spend inside the system. We wanted to give our visitors a different type of thrill where making the first step is not the only thing you need to do, but where you test yourself all the way to the top levels.” 

Polin shares that the built-in safety systems found on Splash Course would require little operator action. “The supervisor/operator only needs to interfere when a user is too afraid to move or stuck midcourse,” Pakis says. “Splash Course is like the ‘Super Mario’ game, where one must stop on a small piece of rock after a big jump. But here, one actually makes the jump instead of controlling a character with a remote.”