The park is planned to be a combination of entertainment and actual robotics development. The core of the establishment will be research and development centers for serious robotics research. There will also be exhibition and education centers planned in order to teach people about what is going on with the latest advancements generated, presumably, at the park itself. And as icing on a cake, the entire area will also be a theme park and water park which will both have a heavy emphasis on robotics. Specific plans for the activities theme park are somewhat sparse but do include a robotics stadium, where robots will be seen doing sporting events which most definitely will include gladiatorial combat.
The theme park, Robot Land, will be built in Incheon. Incheon is a rapidlydeveloping area of Korea next to the international airport, which is being developed as a kind of international business hub. Korean officials are investing a lot of time and money into developing the area to cater to international businesses by building international hospitals and schools and creating foreigner-friendly apartment complexes and business parks. A bridge leading directly to the area from the airport, which is on a man-made island, has almost finished completion. The Incheon theme park is to be set up on a 767,286 square meter area in the Cheongra District of the Incheon Free Economic Zone. Robot Land is scheduled to break ground later this year and to be completed in 2014, although part of the theme park is expected to be available to the public by 2012. There is also some talk of a second park to be built in Masan, which is on the opposite end of the country from Incheon, down on the southeast tip of the peninsula, but no definitive plans have been made yet.
Despite such an optimistic outlook, the steps for Robot Land have barely begun. The Incheon City Government has said that it will establish a Robot Land Corporation in March or April to organize investment and begin the process of hearing master plan proposals from participating construction companies. The company will begin with government funds of 10 billion won (US$6.75 million) and will receive investment from 8 or so construction companies including Byucksan Engineering & Construction, Daewoo Motor Sales Construction Business, LG CNS, and POSCON.
While some of the details are still sketchy, in almost all of the models of Robot Land, the area is dominated by a 100 meter tall old-school anime style robot statue, which is a familiar sight to children all over the nation. It is Taekwon V, an animated robotic smash hit in the 1970s, which was released in the US as Voltar the Invincible. The movie spawned a series of sequels and became a part of the main consciousness of children and the young at heart everywhere. The robotic hero experienced a resurgence in popularity in 2006, on its 30th anniversary. A copy of the original print of the movie was found in an old warehouse. The Korean Film Council spent 1 billion won (US$675,000), 2 years, and 72 people to digitize the film, which was then shown at the Pusan International Film Festival in late 2005. Large, 3 meter high statues of the robot have since made appearances in several prominent locations in Seoul, including in front of the National Assembly building.
The Incheon City Government has great plans for the Taekwon V tower in the theme park. There will be a “universe observatory” located within it, which may be a telescope or may be a museum full of space objects. The robot will also boast a universe pilot seat, something to fuel the imaginations of children everywhere who manage to sit in it for longer than 2 seconds. An exhibition hall is also planned to be created inside the robot statue, and a Taekwon V theme restaurant will top off the list of intra-robotics facilities. However, there are some issues with licensing of the Taekwon V, so its fate is still uncertain.
Incheon is already jumping into the robotics game even before the park is finished. The city has held the Korea Robot Game Festival every year since 2004, a televised event where robots compete against each other in a variety of events, some to the robotic death. Also, on Korea's Educational Broadcasting System (EBS) children can watch the weekly programs Robot Power, sponsored by Incheon. The city has also already invested 32.5 billion won (US$22 million) in building a Robot Complex Center and will host the 2009 International Robot World Cup. Robot Land is just the culmination of Incheon's many robotics efforts to date.
