Visitors to this year’s Asian Attractions Expo (AAE) were the first to ride a ‘gaming robot’ and explore a specially designed virtual world created especially for the event, which took place in Singapore last week.

This new attraction was conceived by experiential designers at Holovis, who envisioned the world of ‘AAE 2133’, enabling guests to take a flying taxi ride around Singapore and make the journey from convention centre to a hotel.

Visitors were able to ride the two-seat, four axis robot arm wearing a VR headset that wraps them in immersive story-telling with spatial audio.

The combination of dynamic motion perfectly synchronised with purpose designed AV creates an intense, thrilling experience.

With the media built in real-time, the setup is uniquely configurable, allowing other exciting elements to be designed-in such as switchable, tailored media, gesture based interactivity, rider guided control, even warring arena robots.

Holovis call this R3ex – Rideable Realtime Robot Experiences.

“Theme Park guests want new kinds of out-of-home experiences that stretch and test their senses like never before,” said Holovis CEO, Stuart Hetherington.

“That’s why we have created R3ex, which is a new type of attraction where the dramatic impact of robotics has been integrated and appropriately layered with other technologies, all working with specially designed real-time media.

According to Hetherington, Future R3ex releases will include rider agency, allowing guests full control of the robot in a safe and complaint way, without losing any of the attraction’s kinetic excitement.

“We also have a four-seat version in development and other ground-breaking innovations to include with R3ex, creating a completely new kind of extended experience,” he said.

Click here to see InterPark’s John Fosbrooke try out the ride at this year’s AAE: