1.1. The purpose of this practice standard is to delineate requirements for the Design, Manufacture, Installation, Operation, Maintenance, Auditing, and Major Modification of commercial or institutional devices or elements that are found in or comprised of Adventure Challenge Attractions Elements and Devices.
1.2. This standard establishes guidelines whose sole purpose is in mitigating hazards to patrons, employees, and spectators.
1.3. This standard applies to Amusement and/or recreational facilities. Such facilities include but are not limited to trampoline parks, theme parks, water parks, family entertainment centers, fitness centers, climbing gyms, gymnastic facilities, sports facilities, skate parks, camps, shopping centers, temporary special events, carnivals, and municipal parks.
1.4. Adventure Challenge Attractions are addressed as the separable components referred to as elements or devices. Examples of these include but are not limited to:
a) Swinging Elements (Swings, Trapeze, Tarzan Rope, Rings, Aerial Silks, Tires, Buoy)
b) Sliding Elements (Slides, Non-Belay Ziplines, Trolleys)
c) Balance Elements (Beams, Rotating Logs, Slacklines) – include accessories like - batons, hanging balls, safety ropes
d) Wall Elements (Warped walls, Traverse Walls, Spider Walls, Incline Run-ups)
e) Net Elements (Cargo bags, Traverse nets, Horizontal Climbing Nets, Net Structures, Net Tunnels, Net Inclines)
f) Vertical Elements (Fireman’s Poles)
g) Vertical Surfaces (Climbing Walls, Warped Walls)
h) Horizontal Elements (Traverse Poles, Cheese Doors, Padded Pole Maze)
i) Crawling Elements (Tunnels, Padded Crawl Spaces, Openings, Up & Over Crawls Spaces)
j) Solid Bar Elements (Monkey Bars, Parallel Bars, Tilting Ladder, Pivoting Bars, Swing Bars)
k) Jumping & Leaping Elements (Raised Leap Pedestals, Giant Leap balls, Springboards, Raised Jump Boxes, Trapezoids, Parkour Elements)
1.5. This standard does not apply to public playground equipment, home playground equipment, sports equipment, amusement rides, fitness equipment not part of the play system, water-related attractions and devices, and toys and juvenile products are not included in this specification.
1.6. This standard does not purport to address all of the hazards associated with Adventure Challenge Attractions. Like other physical activities, Adventure Challenge Attractions involve the risk of injury, particularly if the equipment is used improperly or if users exceed their capabilities, endurance, training, or experience.
1.7. The text of this standard references notes and footnotes which provide explanatory material. These notes and footnotes shall not be considered as requirements of the standard.
1.8. This specification does not address accessibility, except as it pertains to safety issues not covered in the Americans with Disabilities Act Accessibility Guidelines (ADAAG).
1.9. This practice shall not apply to the following:
a) Organized competitive events.
b) Spotted Activities.
c) Aquatic Play
d) Water Attenuation
e) Playground equipment covered by Consumer Safety Performance Specification F1487.
f) Amusement Rides and Devices whose design criteria are specifically addressed by another ASTM standard.
1.10. This practice includes an annex (mandatory), which provides additional information (for example, rationale, background, interpretations, drawings, commentary, and so forth) to improve the user’s understanding and application of the criteria presented in this practice. The annex information shall be interpreted as mandatory criteria.
1.11. This practice includes an appendix (non-mandatory), which provides additional information (for example, rationale, background, interpretations, drawings, commentary, and so forth) to improve the user’s understanding and application of the criteria presented in this practice. The appendix information shall not be interpreted as mandatory criteria.
Keywords
challenge area,
Rationale
Adventure Challenge Attractions consist of collections of physical challenges for patrons to overcome. These challenges are created using different types of elements and devices which provide a variety of different experiences for the purpose of adventure or entertainment.
This Standard Practice was developed to enhance the safety of Adventure Challenge Attractions by providing guidance for the design, manufacture, installation, operation, maintenance, inspection and major modification of these adventure challenge attraction elements and devices.
This industry has evolved rapidly over the past decade and this standard was created in the interest of furthering patron safety through the dissemination of information gathered from many sources. Thus, this document contains material garnered from the Soft Contained Play Areas Standard, the Playground Standard, the Trampoline Standard, and the experience of many individuals and groups involved in the fast-growing patron-directed physical activity amusement industry.
This standard is not intended to intrude on any other ASTM standard and is not intended for use with attractions in which the patron is harnessed or uses a belaying system such as in Aerial Adventures (ziplines) or ropes courses.
