Inspired by a family tradition, Kai and Katherine Eichhorn, 13-year-old twins at Pacific Beach Middle School, have been holding haunted houses for the past five years for their peers in the community. Each year, they’ve developed a creative theme and storyline, and they have hosted more than 120 people through their haunted trails.
Last year’s trail through their backyard included a spooky cemetery, a clown house, dead doll lane, zombie land, spider alley, and dragonville. At that event, they raised funds to benefit the Associated Student Body (ASB) organization at their middle school.
This year, they’ve really stepped it up a notch. For the past year, Kai has been working closely with Michael Cabrera, chief engineer at Valtech Engineering, to design and build a custom motion-simulator ride. Every aspect has been custom-built: from developing the code and engineering designs, constructing models and control boxes, to manual construction of the ride, and building a 12-foot projection screen, along with timed and coded special effects such as air, strobe lights, fog, water, and scent. Imagine, a full-blown simulation ride at Universal Studios or Disneyland – in a Pacific Beach garage.
In anticipation of the costs associated with this project, Kai and Katherine held a fundraising dinner in the spring. They developed a website for their project (https://experiencekingkong.godaddysites.com/), which included ticketing through TicketSpice to attend the fundraising dinner. After the dinner, they pitched a presentation to around 60 guests in a “Shark Tank” manner, demonstrated the model of the simulator ride, and explained their vision for their twin brand called The Eichhorn Experience. The initial launch of the Eichhorn Experience will be called “Experience King Kong.”
Though Kai has spent hundreds of hours with Cabrera developing the motion-simulator ride, his twin sister Katherine has been an intricate part of the design team, bringing together the special elements that will wow guests from the moment they enter. Ticketing for this invite-only free event is through their website and TicketSpice.
After guests check in with an Eichhorn Experience volunteer staff member, they will walk a haunted path down to the queue line. Here, they will be entertained by a video projection describing the guest’s mission on the ride. Next, they will be queued to enter the ride-briefing area, with an informational video regarding safety instructions, rules, and regulations.
From there, up to three guests at a time will venture into the ride area. They’ll be fastened in securely and will be surrounded by a floor-to-ceiling 120-degree curved projection screen. They’ll move through a thrilling ride, full of surprises at the edge of their seat, with special effects along the way. This Eichhorn Experience production, envisioned and created by 13-year-old twins, will hopefully provide a jaw-dropping experience.
Experience King Kong launched on Tuesday, Oct. 25, and will run for five nights. During this time, the twins will be asking for donations from the riders, of which 100% of the proceeds and donations will benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
This organization is near and dear to their hearts. Born three months prematurely, Kai and Katherine feel quite lucky to have avoided their own long-term critical illness due to their micro-preemie start in life. Grateful for their health, their mission someday is to bring their creativity to others in need.
A future vision includes bringing mobile-ride experiences directly to the homes of critically ill children who perhaps are too sick to travel to their wish destination such as Universal Studios or Disneyland. This project will also serve as part of their eighth-grade community service project at Pacific Beach Middle School. The Eichhorn Experience fundraising page is at buymeacoffee.com/EichExperience. All donations to this link will benefit future Eichhorn Experiences.
