Southern California residents are fortunate enough to have no shortage of nearby amusement parks.

Whether you want to head to Knott's Berry Farm, Six Flags, Disneyland or anywhere else, you're pretty well covered.

But what if you want to bring that experience closer to home? Like say... your backyard?

Cal Poly Pomona engineering professor, Steven Dobbs had that goal.

He's transformed his yard into an amusement park for his grandchildren called "Dobbsland."

The origins of the Dobbsland

Dobbs and his wife June live in Fullerton. The couple has two daughters, five grandchildren and two sons in law. "My wife and I are really blessed by God with these grandkids," Dobbs says. 

One of the biggest hurdles to getting his grandchildren to come over is Disneyland. The whole family has annual park passes and, like most kids, they love to go there whenever they can. "I have to compete with that!" Dobbs says. "If we want [the grandkids] to come over, we have to have something for them to play with."

Then Dobbs had an idea: bring a smaller Disney experience to his backyard.

"It started off with this little Thomas the Train that went around in circles that little kids could ride on," Dobbs says. "After about ten minutes, they got bored riding that. And so I said, well they love tunnels. So I made a tunnel out of a cardboard box. That lasted about five minutes then I said I gotta do better than that. After that, the whole thing took on a life of its own and went totally out of control."

Engineering the rides

Dobbsland today is made up of a multiple rides. The first one that was completed was the smaller version of Disney's "It's a Small World," that Dobbs calls Tiny World. 

"My wife had a mallor mallet doll collection. She was going to get rid of it... and I said I'll have the dolls!" Dobbs says. "I took them and put motors on them so they'd be dancing when the kids went through. The tunnel is encased in a smaller approximation of the larger Disneyland structure that hold 'It's a Small World.' That sort of made it a little more permanent," says Dobbs.

Next to that is 13-foot-tall 'Sleeping Princess Castle,' a reference to the Sleeping Beauty castle. Inside, the tracks run through visuals from the movie Frozen, complete with lights and dancing versions of Anna and Elsa.

The track then loops around to a cabin that houses the Dobbsland version of Winnie the Pooh. Inside are more animated dolls, this time of Pooh, Tigger and Eyore. 

With all of the music and visuals playing out in each ride, it's clear just how much work has gone into making Dobbsland a small-scal version of Walt Disney's seminal theme park.  Dobbs says, "Now [my grandkids] can come to my backyard and if they don't get to go to Disneyland, they can play like they're at Disneyland right here."

The latest attraction

The central attraction to Dobbsland is a large white wooden roller coaster that Dobbs calls the Madderhorn (not to be confused with Disneyland's Matterhorn). It's roughly 100 feet long in a kidney shape with a large drop half way through.  

Dobbs originally told his colleague at Cal Poly Pomona about his idea for the roller-coaster. "He said, 'I know some students who would love to build your coaster for their senior project.' So he actually formed the team for me and I was one of the advisors."

It took three months of design work and three more months of building and testing. Finally, the track was brought to Dobbs's back yard where it was ready to be ridden.

"We've had full-grown adults [ride it] down to like three-year-olds," Dobbs says. "This was full engineered as if this was a roller coaster at a major theme park."

Which is better: Disneyland or Dobbsland?

Dobbs's goal making a fun place for his grandchildren to come play has been successful. He recalls their laughter as they rode through "Tiny World" for the first time and the birthday parties that they've thrown with dozens of kids enjoying every attraction.

He's had the heart to ask his grandkids the ultimate question: Which do they prefer: Dobbsland or Disneyland?

"They all say Dobbsland," Dobbs says. "But I think that was from some prompting [from their moms]."

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