Walt Disney Imagineering used a team of interpretive dancers to make the auto factory robotic arms coming to a new Iron Man attraction at Disney California Adventure appear more lifelike as they whirl riders around like a paint mixer.
A behind-the-scenes video tour of Imagineering’s secret creative laboratory offered a sneak peek at the new Stark Flight Lab attraction coming to the Avengers Campus superhero themed land at the Disneyland resort.
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Construction has begun on the Stark Flight Lab attraction as part of an expansion that will double the size of Avengers Campus at Disney California Adventure.
Stark Flight Lab will be two rides in one — featuring stationary Kuka RoboCoaster motion simulator robot arms and a separate tracked ride experience.
Riders will sit in gyro-kinetic pods atop a chassis transport system that will travel along a roller coaster-like track with the help of linear synchronous motors.
The train of 12 cars — each with two seats — will stop in front of a dozen giant robot arms. After attaching to the gyro-kinetic pods, the robot arms will lift the riders into the air where they will make several high-speed aerial maneuvers inspired by Iron Man.
After the thrill portion of the ride, the robot arms will transfer the pods back to the chassis base and the riders will travel along the track back to the station.
Stark Flight Lab combines two ride systems that have never been used together in this way.
“Nothing like this has ever been done before in a theme park,” Imagineering Chief Creative Officer Bruce Vaughn said at SXSW in Austin, Texas. “We’re so excited about it.”
Concept art for Stark Flight Lab shows a track layout with three transport systems each with 24 seats. One set of gyro-kinetic pods will load at the station while another stops at the row of robotic arms with the third train moving between the two locations.
Riders will wear flexible over-the-shoulder restraints as they turn, twist and dip from side to side on the thrill portion of the attraction.
Imagineering used a team of interpretive dancers wearing motion-capture suits to make the movements of the Kuka robot arms in Stark Flight Lab feel as lifelike as possible.
Imagineering likened the row of robotic arms to a choreographed dance kick line — modeling the movements of the dancers to give each arm emotion and personality.
Unlike most Disney rides, Stark Flight Lab will celebrate the technology behind the attraction rather than hide it, making the robotic tech highly visible and part of the experience.
“Usually, we hide all the tech behind the scenes so you can focus on the story,” Vaughn said at SXSW. “Here, the tech is the story, so we’re putting it front and center.”
Stark Flight Lab will be set inside Tony Stark’s workshop where the Avengers invent, develop and test new technologies needed to defend the universe, according to the backstory for the attraction.
Riders will be briefed by the billionaire genius playboy inventor before they are loaded into two-person pods for a test flight.
The Kuka robots will play the role of the DUM-E hydraulic robotic arm in Tony Stark’s workshop.
Robert Downey Jr., who will play the supervillain Doctor Doom in “Avengers: Doomsday” in 2026, will reprise his role as Tony Stark/Iron Man for DCA’s Stark Flight Lab.
Kuka RoboCoasters have been used on Knights Tournament at Legoland California, Sum of All Thrills at Epcot and the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey motion based dark rides at several Universal parks.
The Kuka 6-axis robot arms can be programmed with a variety of motion profiles and can even allow riders to adjust their thrill levels.
The Sum of All Thrills attraction that operated at Florida’s Epcot until 2016 allowed riders to customize their experience by adjusting the intensity, acceleration and inversion levels.
The intensity level ranged from gentle to extreme on the Knights Tournament ride that ran at Legoland through 2019.
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Construction has also begun on a second new attraction in DCA’s Avengers Campus — the Avengers Infinity Defense E-ticket dark ride that has been in development since 2019.
Opening dates have not yet been announced for Stark Flight Lab or Avengers Infinity Defense.