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Invented in the 1990s in New
Zealand, Zorbing was the brainchild of two Kiwis
searching for a new challenging and adventurous
activity. Zorbing is currently a global business
with agents for franchise in several countries. More
than two hundred Zorbs have been shipped out from
the factory in Rotorua and the outlook for wannabe
zorbonauts seems bright.
People of different age groups enjoy this sport
which requires you to be strapped into a humungous
ball which is air-cushioned and made of clear
plastic. |
You are in fact quite safe within the central capsule. The
outer transparent ball with is bigger absorbs all the
vicious bouncing.
During the rolling of the ball down a slope covered with
grass, you revolve around in a near anti-gravity structure
of buoyancy, similar to a drunken traveler in space.
Tumbling topsy-turvy, the centrifugal force builds up and
keeps you pushed hard against the wall of plastic, so it is
a cinch to just go with the flow and take pleasure in the
spinning sight outside
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A more current version of this
out of this world adventure is liquid-zorbing. Water
in 2 to 3 pails is added to the jumble and you stay
free of the inner ball similar to a loose cannon
dipping uncontrollably.
Another variant is Hydro-zorbing which involves the
zorb to float over the surface of a lake, leaving
you to flounder across the water.
Since the 1970s, hamster balls made of a single
layer of hard plastic shaped into spheres were
manufactured for small pet rodents. An article from
Russia mentions a device similar to the Zorb that
had made it appearance on the market in 1973. The
Dangerous Sports Club during the early 1980s built a
massive sphere with a gimbal system sustaining
inside 2 deck chairs. |
This contraption was finally dismantled and made
into scrap, with a quantity of of the remaining
plastic used to envelop a heap of compost. Since the
1990s, mass media has shown human spheres when the
Atlasphere, a Gladiators event, aired for the first
time, even though the balls were made of steel. In
Auckland, New Zealand, Andrew Akers and Dwane van
der Sluis came up with the idea for a kind of sphere
in 1994, naming their contraption the "Zorb".
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ZORB Limited, a firm created with 2 other investors,
began marketing sphereing. Their model for business
was to build up the activity globally through a
system of franchise.
Van der Sluis left the company in 2000 and resumed
his job as a software engineer. Akers went on to be
the company’s CEO until he resigned in 2006 of
April. The master operator of the ZORB franchise in
Europe, Michael Stemp, together with Attila Csato of
the franchise in Hungary, left ZORB and established
Downhill Revolution, a consultancy firm for
sphereing as well as a manufacturer. The brothers
Andrew and David Akers joined up with Chris Roberts
to build the Outdoor Gravity Orb or OGO as well as
the Fishpipe. |
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Sphereing is also known as Zorbing or Orbing. In 2001,
Zorbing became a word in the Concise Oxford English
Dictionary and it is defined as: "a sport in which a
participant is secured inside an inner capsule in a large,
transparent ball which is then rolled along the ground or
down hills".
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