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Curious by Design: A Theme Park Engineer's Memoir
Paperback
Travel GeneralGeneral Computers
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Jul 21 2026
Pages: 234
Weight: 0.70
Height: 0.49 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
How does a kid whose father builds a hot tub four feet wide and six feet deep end up designing the control systems for the world's biggest theme parks-and then, in his seventies, start arguing about book titles with an AI?
Curious by Design is the story of Steve Alcorn, an engineer who spent forty years making sure the magic worked-and somehow managed to avoid taking himself too seriously. Not the kind of magic that needs fairy dust. The kind that needs a Z80 processor, a Binloop, and someone willing to sit in an equipment room at three in the morning wondering why a five-ton theater wall just moved eight feet more than it was supposed to.
This is a memoir about what it takes to build things that can't fail: ride vehicles that carry millions of guests, animatronic stages that rise out of the floor on schedule, theater doors that open at the right moment in the soundtrack, every time, for decades. It's about the people who build them-the mentors, the partners, the crews who become family. And it's about what happens when the control systems are all running perfectly and the question changes from will it work? to what should I be curious about next?
Along the way, you'll discover:
- The EPCOT opening that nearly didn't happen - and the phantom emergency stop that haunted the Imagination pavilion
- The Mannheim Steamroller speaker test that turned a loading dock into a weather event
- The day a software bug sent a Star Trek transporter ride into a frenzy during a press event
- The carnival balloon that escaped its moorings with nobody aboard - a ride with no control system
- The writing teacher in a geodesic dome who changed everything, and then was gone
- The total solar eclipse that made an engineer stop thinking about systems and start thinking about space
- The AI assistant that apologized for its mistakes, argued about chapter titles, and turned out to be right
From a childhood spent taking things apart to the founding of Alcorn McBride, from the EPCOT trenches of 1982 to a dining table in Vancouver where a fox in a scarf sits at the top of a messaging app and the cursor blinks, Curious by Design follows a life driven by a single question: how does this work, and what happens if I try this?
The most interesting life happens where disciplines overlap. This is a book for anyone who has ever taken something apart to see how it fits together, and then wanted to build something of their own.
About the Author: Steve Alcorn is a USA Today bestselling author, engineer, and educator. After opening EPCOT in 1982 he founded Alcorn McBride, the leading maker of technology for theme park attractions worldwide. In 2001 he founded Writing Academy, where for more than 25 years he has helped over 100,000 students structure their novels. He is the author of 30 books spanning fiction, nonfiction, and writing craft, and narrates many of his own audiobooks.
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