During my tenure as a design engineer, I have had to design products for varying environments ranging from space platforms to consumer electronics. Until recently, I thought that they were the worst environments that one might experience. I now believe to have found the worst environment for electronic equipment.

Not being a carnival or rodeo habitant, the last ghost house that I can remember entering was in Rockaway's Playland during my childhood. There, a coach on wheels followed a rail track through the house. As the coach passed certain points, the displays lit up and the ghosts appeared scaring no one. The important thing to remember about that ghost house is that the consumers were contained within coaches and not allowed to roam and get into trouble.

Now I have been contracted to design and build equipment for ghost houses where the consumers pass through under their own power. Let me first describe the condition of some of the customers who partake of ghost houses. To begin, their sobriety is not a prerequisite. They also come in packs like wolves. They enter a dark place walking through a dark corridor while their eyes begin to get adjusted to the darkness. They pass a sensor and, seemingly in front of them, a brightly lit ghoulish looking ghost appears with the characteristic shriek. Some laugh. Some get scared. A few get so scared that they attack the walls of the house. Some have been known to knock down and/or pass through the walls destroying the house until it can be repaired. Some, in their inebriated state get upset and attempt to destroy anything that they can see and get their hands on.

Then there is the more insidious type, the curious one, the one who really wants to have fun, the one alone during the slower periods where there is less traffic. As he passes a sensor, he is determined to figure out what type of sensor is being utilized and will go back and forth several times to identify it. If the sensor is found to be located in the floor boards a 300 pound customer might start jumping up and down on the floor board to determine how strong it is. The test lasts for as long as he might be alone or until the sensor fails. Upon failure, he then records on the data sheet the date, time and number of jumps required for failure. If the sensor is infrared light beams in the wall, once found, they get covered with band aids, chewing gum, nail polish, and even cotton candy. If the light beams emanate from orifices, the holes get filled with chewing gum wrappers and any other paraphernalia that might be handy.

Then there is the souvenir seeker. Do you remember reading reports that the petrified forest is almost out of petrified wood? Well, there seem to be people who have the need of a memento from wherever they have been. It does not seem to matter whether or not the memento has intrinsic value. It has sentimental value and that's sufficient. To the ghost house designer, the souvenir seeker presents a very special challenge. If he can not actually lift a ghost, anything will do. For instance, anything mounted on the walls, floors, ceilings is fair game. It seems that the souvenir seekers come prepared with crow bars ready for their challenge. Remember the floor board mounted switch? Its floor board just got pried up by a souvenir seeker, exposing an indentation in a previously flat, continuous floor where the illumination is pitch black. But that is a subject to be discussed between my client and his insurance company.

Until recently, I thought that the typical space, consumer and automotive environments were about the worst that one can find. But now, equipment that I design will be entering the environment of willful destruction. Some day, after several years of experience fielding ghost house equipment, I might possibly write an environmental specification for it. What shall I call it? MIL-E-GHOST?