Richmond Olympic Oval Immersive Surfing Simulator at the Olympic Experience Museum
The Richmond Olympic Oval commissioned an ambitious new project at the end of 2019 to add a whole new type of simulation experience to its IOC-sanctioned Olympic Museum that already included simulators for Bobsleigh, Kayaking, and Sit-Ski simulation. The new simulator was themed after surfing as it had recently been added as an official Olympic sport. The completed simulator was enclosed within a custom-designed dome & featured a 4-degree-of-freedom D-BOX motion platform with a surfboard on top (with safety barriers & skirting around it to protect museum patrons), a 5.1 surround-sound system, and twin Barco 4K projectors with image outputs blended together 270 degrees around the interior of the dome “screen”. The surfing simulator ran one of two user-selected experiences: Tofino or Costa Rica – and using purpose-built projected footage loops & synchronized surfboard motion, the simulator takes users across the waves and through the barrels of a surfer’s experience.
I was responsible for all mechanical & structural design elements, designs in CAD, manufacturing oversight, overall dome design with electrical & ventilation specifications, project management, subcontractor coordination, and client interaction.
The completed simulator currently runs alongside the other simulation experiences within the Richmond Olympic Experience Museum.
