Grandfather Builds His Own “Disneyland” in His Back Yard. Steve Dobbs, a retired aerospace engineer from Boeing, took on the task of building his very own “Disneyland” inspired backyard for his family to enjoy. The impressive and magical backyard now dubbed “Dobbsland” features many Disneyland inspired scaled down attractions and buildings such as The Matterhorn, Main Street, USA, Sleeping Beauty’s Castle, It’s a Small World, and more!
Dobbs spent a career with Boeing as an aerospace engineer and now teaches at Cal Poly Pomona. He has enlisted the help of his students to bring a few of the attractions to life including a working rollercoaster designed by Dobb’s engineering students. All together the project cost roughly $4,500 USD.
“I said to them, you’d better make it safe, because my grandkids are going to be riding it,” Steve says. SFGate shared that Dobbs even had a member of Dynamic Engineering, the folks who test attractions for the Disney Parks, come out to test his miniaturized Matterhorn rollercoaster. Reportedly, the coaster can hit a maximum of 12 mph and pulls 1.2Gs of force when ridden by an adult.
“Sometimes my ideas are bigger than reality,” Steve says. The original vision for the Madderhorn was to have a three-level descent built into an actual mountain structure. “We started calculating how much space you’d need, and it would take up more than the whole backyard.”
Steve is very happy his students have taken an interest in Dobbsland, but the backyard park has now turned into a family affair. Dobbs’ grandchildren now help to maintain the attractions and have begun to design their own for the backyard park.
SFGate shares, “Dobbsland’s newest ride, conceived and constructed by Steve and his 10-year-old granddaughter, is Ruby’s Safari Ride. It takes a page from the Jungle Cruise, though you cruise through on a two-wheel electric vehicle, and the dioramas are of places that are significant to the eponymous Ruby: temple ruins in East Asia in tribute to the Indiana Jones ride, the African savannah because she loves the live-action Lion King, and Glacier Bay in Alaska, because the whole family took a cruise there last year. Just try to watch the video of the making of Ruby’s Safari and see if it doesn’t warm your hardened heart.
“The whole thing was her idea,” Steve says. “I helped her, but she designed it on the computer, with the animation and everything. We 3D-printed the snake on top.” His backyard fantasyland also aims at teaching valuable STEM lessons starting basically at birth. Those lessons extend to the park too. When Steve goes with his grandkids, who are homeschooled, he and his daughter make Disney workbooks for the kids to do learning activities while they’re there. “My daughter [who makes online curricula for homeschooling] is into that,” Steve says. “Everything they do, it’s part of their education.“”
The Dobbs Family is now looking to add even more magical attractions to the backyard park including a Haunted Mansion themed structure and a once Peter Pan themed zip line attraction that his granchildren “overruled” and will now be designed as a Harry Potter Quidditch themed zip line attraction.
Steve has also expressed he is heavily interested in creating a small railroad system that borders the property and will allow for easy transportation around Dobbsland, much like the Walt Disney World Railroad in Orlando, FL. Though, his wife has vetoed any permanent changes to the front yard at this time.
To learn more about the creation of Dobbsland and to follow along in their imagineering journey, you can check out their YouTube Account by CLICKING HERE
Be sure to check back here at Chip and Co. for updates on Dobbsland and all things Entertainment!
Featured Photo Credit: Steve Dobbs
Source: SF Gate
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