5000 Awesome Facts

I am on Fact #3 of 15 about Ferris Wheels in the National Geographic for Kids.

In India, Myanmar, Ferris Wheel riders don’t have to worry if their anticipated Ferris wheel ride will all of a sudden break down leaving them HIGH and DRY at the very top because of electric or steam engines going haywire and ruining the fun, for they have a Human Powered Ferris Wheel. Two of these Ferris Wheel are owned by Myint Thamada, a group that travels 8 months out of the year to 20 pagoda festivals carried throughout India. The group will stop at a festival and stay for about 8-10 days and then travel onward to the next awaiting one.

Employees range from 16 on up, with the only pre-requisite of being able to take on the physical demands of the job. Injuries are relatively minor, such as a sprained ankle or wrist, broken bone or two, but nothing close to other injuries that can occur on all other Ferris wheels.

After hustling people to take a chance on their Ferris wheel at a price of $4.00 each, the individual cars are loaded up with passengers, pushed forward by employees on the ground to start the rotation, while others scale up and around the 20′ wheel. They maintain the wheel using their own body weight and aerobatic skills.

I tried to look up how they are fairing in 2022 and could not find anything, probably because of COVID. I hope that those human powered Ferris wheels are back and running. I am also thinking maybe it would be really cool if we could have something like that here.

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/58352/india-has-human-powered-ferris-wheels