News

Kiosks and RFID wristbands keep kids safe in theme park

September 13, 2004

DALLAS - Florida-based Wannado City, the first indoor role-playing theme park for kids, is increasing children's safety throughout the 40 venues at its 140,000-square-foot facility located near Fort Lauderdale, Fla., using SafeTzone's Real-Time Locating System. The technology, which combines passive and active radio frequency identification tags and readers from Texas Instruments and RF Code, respectively, allows parents or other members of a group to identify the whereabouts of their family and friends at any time while inside the facility.

Designed to inspire children from ages four to 11, the indoor city allows kids to actively explore a world where they become doctors, dentists, firefighters, archaeologists, actors, television news reporters, chefs, judges, airplane pilots and a host of other professions. Each visitor receives a WannaFinder plastic wristband - a hybrid wireless bracelet which combines a Texas Instruments 23mm passive, low-frequency transponder and an RF Code Mantis series active RFID tag. The WannaFinder wristband communicates information, including a person's location, via radio signals to a series of TI and RF Code readers and makes the information accessible through the many WannaFinder touch screen kiosks situated throughout the park. RF Code's TAVIS data management software collects and consolidates data from the active RFID tags, while SafeTzone's patented Real-Time Location Module draws associations among the passive and active data to identify and locate each member of a group.

Groups can easily and securely access the real-time location of their members on a map of the park at any time of day in English or Spanish simply by scanning their WannaFinder wristbands at any kiosk. While the active tag communicates a person's location, the passive RF tag automatically identifies visitors as they approach the touch screen kiosks and scan their wristbands, linking them to onscreen icons marking the individual location of any member of their family or group within the park.

Wannado Entertainment, which plans to open new "cities" in the top 10 U.S. markets over the next several years, is the most recent company to incorporate the SafeTzone Location Services package into an entertainment park. Outdoor deployments of the SafeTzone solution include Paramount's Great America (Santa Clara, Calif.), Wild Rivers Water Park (Irvine, Calif.), Dollywood's Splash Country (Pigeon Forge, Tenn.), Wet 'n Wild (Las Vegas) and the soon to be opened Steamboat Springs Ski Resort (Steamboat Springs, Colo.).