Australia's Wonderland is Sydney's largest theme park and was installing a new freefall ride "Probe 7". Wonderland's concept was a War of the Worlds type show with beams projecting down from the top of the tower exploding what ever they hit in a systematic alien attack on the park from the UFO shape head of the tower. The show was to be produced to an audio track that would play over the parks entire PA system and a complete fireworks spectacular provided by Howard and Sons.

Oracle won the contract to install the laser system and produce the laser show. The ride itself consisted of a single 100m high tower which simply drops people in carriages from the top. It is a very scary ride and we were often used as test weights during the installation since no one else was around. The project presented several engineering problems since there was no room at the top of the tower for any bulky equipment, therefore a fibre optic system was designed utilising a 20W Argon laser at the base of the tower and two custom designed remote controlled fibre optic scan heads at the top of the tower joined by 2 x 100m 50 micron fibre optic laser power transmission cables to the laser

The installation proved to be extremely difficult starting with carrying the scan heads up the 100m ladder inside the tower. Even worse, as the ride was being commissioned, the ladder became covered in grease from the counterweights racing up and down the centre on their newly oiled track. The scan heads were installed and aligned while hanging in a harness over a 100m drop just to add to the excitement.

Eventually the system was installed, tested and operational until the night before the show when a workman accidentally cut the optical fibres at the base of the tower. Power transmission optic fibres can not be rejoined. To get us through opening night, the laser was moved into the ride area so that people were walking around it to board or exit the ride. It was not exactly ideal conditions for the equipment, but the show went on...

The following week two more 100m fibre optic cables were installed and the show ran smoothly for 15 weeks every Saturday night to over 5000 patrons. The show was extremely successful for the launch of the ride and entertainment for the summer season.