The job was far from easy. "We took the prototype to our bank maneger hoping to get a loan, but he wasn't very enthusiastic," says Andrew. "His actual wordswere:'That's a nice beach ball,'which didn't really give us much cinfidence. " Luckily, they were not discouraged and each one decided to design a sphere separately. "Dwane's sphere was too small and mine was too large. Each one was useless on its own, but we put one inside the other and the Zorb was birn. "
The Zorbonaut, the person enjoying the thrill of Zorbing, climbs into the inside ball through a hole or kind of tunnel that passes through the outside ball. There is more than 2 ft. Of air between the Zorbonaut and the ground to protect the person from the effects of tha ball bouncing along. Now the Zorb has been fully tested to make sure ti is completely safe, which wasn't what happened originally. "I broke my arm in the prototype, but we have done our best to prevent injury since then," says Andrew.
Only the strongest materials have been used to make Zorbs. The plastic does not tear and the outside ball is designed so that it does not lose its shape. After designers had been experimenting for a long time, they made Zords with harnesses to keep people safely in position while they are Zorbing on their own or whit a friend.
Zorbing is so new that Andrew and Dwane still have to answer questions about it. "People asked us a lot of questions at first, but we were able to answer them because we had though about the problems carefully before the Zorb went on sale,"
says Dwane "And one thing they still want to know is whether they will be sick in it. Well we've had over 10,000 Zorbonauts and not one has been sick yet!"
So, what's it like? "It's not like being in a tumbel dryer and it doesn't turn your stomach, but the feeling is very , very strange. Why don't you try it? "
says Andrew, encouragingly.