The ROBOT theme park: South Korea plans £380m attraction where visitors build their own droids and watch mechanical animals

Theme park will include a robot R&D centre and a graduate school

It is expected to open in 2016 and will feature rides, a water park, nightclubs, apartments and even a robotic aquarium

A futuristic new theme park that offers robot-themed roller coasters, a water park, exhibitions and even an aquarium with mechanical fish, is being built in South Korea.

The site in Incheon, south west of Seoul, will combine business and pleasure because as well as rides and shops selling the latest hi-tech robots, the theme park will also include a robot R&D centre as well as a kind of graduate school.

Expected to open as early as 2016, the theme park of the future will cost in the region of $625million (£380million), according to Discovery.

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The site will be a hybrid theme and research park so that some visitors will celebrate robots and have a fun day out, while others will be building the machines of the future in the same location.

Features of Robot Land are shown off in a series of maps, with major attractions including a roller coaster that looks as if it is being held aloft by a giant Transformer, themed shows, nightclubs, a monorail and even robot boxing, as well as giant shops, immersive cinemas and a robotic aquarium.
A vast exhibition hall, research and development centre and post graduate robotics school, as well as industrial development facilities, are also planned.

The creators of the 1,259,890 square metre park say it will be the ‘world’s first theme park related to robotics.’
‘It is a robotic cultural complex comprising mainly exhibition halls, robot experimental and learning facilities and play equipment,’ the website says.
The South Korean government first publicised its plans for a robot theme park in 2009, but they came to nothing, Fast Company Labs reported.

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The new Masan Robot Land designs seem to build upon the old ones and incorporate an industrial focus too. The project even reportedly plans to the first ‘robot city’.
While the theme park is intended to be completed by 2016, the other industrial elements of the park are set to be built by 2018 and the funding for the vast project is coming from the government as well as private companies.

Robohub reported that a vast amount of money has already been committed to the project and the purchase of the land is almost complete.
Hotels, hostels and a giant robot statue are also being planned for later stages of development.