My son Japhy, 5, still falls off his chair from time to time, and is shaky on his pedal bike, but at a construction themed amusement park in southern New Jersey, we have given him control of a 7,092-pound JCB excavator. He is sitting on his father's lap and moving the boom arm of the digger to scoop up the earth.
The ideal of Diggerland was for families to experience the thrill of operating construction equipment.
The Sahara Sam's Oasis indoor and outdoor water park was opened in the 2000s by two American brothers who worked for their father's construction company. At Diggerland, the owners have worked with construction equipment manufacturers to modify dozens of models for safe use by children starting at 36 inches tall.
The engines have an auto shut-off, the cabs have rollover protection, the machines' tracks are fixed in place, and the turn adjustment on the diggers is limited. It is a playground of yellow and black where dumper trucks, tractors, backhoes, rollers, of course, diggers crawl around set courses or paw through their designated spot on the ground A 21-acre arena of concrete bollards, storm fencing, site offices, neon pink, yellow or orange safety vests, matching construction helmets and hot dogs are all part of the design of the park.
The Sky Shuttle, in which guests are lifted 50 feet toward the sun in seats welded onto the scoop of a telehandler, is one of the rides that can be combined. The water main at the back of the park has a wave pool and various slides and splash pads in homage to plumbing infrastructure.
There is a clear appeal for children. They gain powers when they control the levers with their hands, like Tony Stark in Iron Man. "All the tools and engines on earth are only extensions of man's limbs and senses."
On a recent Sunday, I entered the park and saw a staff member working hard to correct the steering of a child in an off-road vehicle. Guests are strapped into chairs in the scoop of a digger and spin around in a blur of force. A call is made over the P.A. system throughout the day.
Japhy hopped into a small barrel car being towed by a Ventrac tractor after my daughter Scout took a ride on the Elevation Station. They drive a Terex Dumper Truck around a course with my foot on the pedals. Scout added to the thrill of commanding this beast by taking her hands off the wheel and letting it drive itself towards the barriers, a reminder of why we haven't allowed children to drive the open roads since the early 1900s.
The Mini Diggers weigh as much as a newborn whale and have been modified so that the operator can use the arm to hook foam ducks from a small pond. The machine wouldn't start until we knocked down a pin. No major infrastructure project depended on our skills. A father looks at me in the line. He wonders if the park would ever be opened for adults. There is an adults-only experience driving full-size equipment through a course that is advised by a staff member via two-way radio.
The largest of the excavators are called the JCB 8030, and they are coin-operated.
The dirt can be moved with the 8030 My husband said that he felt like Tony Soprano as he operated on us.
Humans are enamored by mechanical arms and legs. The Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction site series of children's books has sold more than 5 million copies to date, and has become a popular experience for children and adults.
Extreme Sandbox in St. Paul, Minn., allows children and adults to drive full-size construction equipment for a fee. Car crush can be added for an extra fee at Extreme Sandbox. Tank Town USA in Morgantown, Ga., is less focused on the construction experience than it is on driving a tank.
Dennis Nierzwicki said that an idea sketched on paper is usually the beginning of innovation at the park. In the case of the Greased Beast, a steel demolition truck with seatbelts that jacks up at one end, they wanted to find out how to make people feel like they're being dumped out of the truck.
They are going to open a fleet of small tower cranes this year that riders will sit in and operate with a joystick.
The Big Diggers were our favorite. Two people are working on the same goal: moving dirt. You operate two levers that move the claw side to side, up and down, in and out, diving the claw into soft earth. It feels like you have accomplished something when you look at the dirt.
The dirt is re-leveled at the end of the day.
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