An adventure park is a place usually designed for a large volume of visitors ranging from kids to adults. These places don’t allow a specific educational concept; instead, they create an environment where physical and mental challenges become recreational activities. There is one essential element that makes this possible: safety. Since safety equipment is a must for every adventure park visitor and adventurer, it’s important for each adventure park owner to eliminate the slightest chance of putting its customers at risk. But how can they do that?
A startup that combines the knowledge of the Dutch and Hungarians residing in Székelyudvarhely (Odorheiu Secuiesc), Hargita County, and that enjoys the services of the Harghita Business Center, has built a solution that is unique in this field. After a year of hard work and continuous feedback from adventure park owners, Sándor Csatlós and his team at Overhead are preparing to launch ParkUpKeep, an adventure park inspection, maintenance and reporting toolkit.
Available both as a Web and Android application, ParkUpKeep is a software that helps adventure park employees quickly identify possible risks in the park and provides the necessary tools to ensure the highest safety level for adventure park visitors.
Adventure parks can protect their customers with safety equipment, which basically consists of a harness, a lanyard, and a belay system and helmets. “Since these items ensure the physical safety of the individual, adventure parks must follow strict maintenance rules. Miss a maintenance period and you could put a customer’s life in danger,” Sándor Csatlós says. “Just like a car, you need to take the harnesses for periodic inspection and service every 30 days or 30 uses. “The harnesses are made of different components, which all have their separate lifecycle,” he continued, adding that after the component has reached the end of its life, it must be changed.
ParkUpKeep, the maintenance software developed by Csatlós and his team, is a digital toolkit that first of all allows the adventure park owner to digitize the park with the Course Designer option, which eases the inspection while using the mobile app. With a digitized course, adventure park employees can perform regular inspections with the Android app running on their tablet or mobile phone. If they notice a problem during the course inspection, users can select the element and report it by adding a photo, and description, then set the importance level and due date for the repairs.
At the core of this software is a complete database of the adventure park’s safety equipment, along with the digitized course, and when this process is done, the fun begins. With the use of technology, ParkUpKeep automates the periodic checks by reminding the park employees to take that particular element for periodic inspection. That convenience beats the memory of a person or data entered into a Microsoft Excel sheet.
After a long development cycle, ParkUpKeep is finally ready for launch, Csatlós says with a happy smile. Along with the launch customers, they already have seven customers who have signed up for a demo account, but they are aiming high: all the adventure parks in Europe, and then the world.
