Bumper boats are an amusement park ride that uses inner tube shaped watercraft that can be steered by the rider. Some are driven by electric motors, some by gasoline engines, and some require the rider to propel the craft by pedaling. Most are equipped with water guns for duels with other riders. Bumper boat attractions can commonly be found in places such as amusement parks, carnivals, fairs, family fun centers, and theme parks.

Bumper boats are an amusement ride in which people drive small boats in a pool or pond and try to crash into each other for fun. In a patent application related to the ride, its inventor wrote, "one of the thrills of operating amusement park boats of this type is to initiate collisions with other similar boat within a relatively confined pool." The small boats can hold one or two people and have oversized fenders that resemble a large tractor tire inner tube. The boats are powered by either electric or gasoline engines.

Edward A. Morgan, co-founder of amusement park ride manufacturer Arrow Development Company, invented bumper boats in the early 1970s. Morgan applied for a U.S. patent on the ride in 1972. The U.S. government granted the patent in 1974. The patent includes detailed design and construction guidelines, including a maximum speed of four miles per hour and circular shock absorbers around the boat to protect riders.

Bumper boats are similar in concept to the much older and more ubiquitous bumper cars. Like bumper boats, the point of bumper cars is to collide with other cars. Bumper cars date to the early 1920s. Bumper car collisions tend to be more jarring than bumper boats.

Arrow Development Company, later known as Arrow Dynamics, was the original maker and patent owner of the bumper boats ride. Arrow was founded in 1946 by Edward Morgan and Karl Bacon as a builder of carousels and other rides. The company's fortunes took off when Walt Disney hired it to build many of Disneyland's original rides, such as Snow White's Adventures and Casey Jr. Circus Train. The company gradually became mostly a roller coaster maker over the years. It went bankrupt in 2001. Rival ride maker S&S Power bought Arrow that year and maintains S&S Arrow as a division today. It primarily makes roller coasters.

Another idea spawned during the decade of the 1930s was the "Dodgem Motor Boats." Like the Dodgem car, the boats were operator driven and seated two adults. As the Dodgem car had given many a first opportunity to "get behind the wheel of a car," so the boats gave many their first chance to operate a powerboat. Streamlined and slick in appearance, the powerboats were designed to give both driver and passenger the feeling of a luxury ride in a lake or lagoon.

A brief eyewitness description of the boats constructed for this new ride was written in July 1932:

Visited Amesbury with Markey and looked over his new Dodgem boat which is a very nice looking job. It is considerably longer than the water skooter made by Lusse [Company] and built on a different principal. These are made all of wood. This, if it operates satisfactorily, should prove a very nice boat.