Paper Roller Coaster

By Jonathan Doucette P6

Introduction

Roller coasters have been around for around 114 years. They are fun and exhilarating types of rides. There are basically two types of roller coasters, wooden and steel. The wooden roller coasters are good because they are a bumpier ride which can be fun for some people, and they look insanely great. A downside to wooden roller coasters is that they are slower and are more likely to be damaged in a fire. Steel roller coasters on the other hand are very fast and smooth, they can also work in different ways, with magnets etc. A downside is that they are not that old antique feel, and are more expensive. A fun fact about roller coasters is that I’ve ridden the second highest and fastest roller coaster in the world in Cedar Point, Ohio. It can reach 120 miles per hour in 3.5 seconds.

Physics Relation

The relationship between physics and roller coasters are actually very important. The physics laws governing roller coaster designs need to be accounted for at all times. If these laws aren’t accounted for, the roller coaster could injure riders, or not even work at all. The First Law of Motion applies to roller coasters because you need to use it in order to move the roller coaster cart as well as stop the cart without hurting anyone. Gravity is also very important because it’s what keeps the roller coaster on the track and the people in their seats. One more important relationship between physics and roller coasters is the friction. Friction needs to be accounted for because you want your roller coaster to go as fast as possible which means less friction, but you want it to slow down at the end which means increasing up to more friction.

Journal

I chose the fire theme because not only is fire easy, but flames have been proven to make items go faster, and my goal is to have the fastest marble out there. My original idea looked somewhat like the outcome. We had to change the slope of the starting ramp in order to make the loop without the marble staying off track which was one modification. I choose this design because it was easiest to just get the hard items out of the loop and end ina funnel into a cup. We had some difficulties creating the loop which led to searching on the internet for a guide of how to make it without a template. Our original curve was not able to hold the marble the entire way, so to fix that we had to increase the wall on the and angle it a bit separately. Overall, because I planned out the rollercoaster so well, there weren’t many problems other than just learning the construction and how to build the loops and more.

Sketch:

Theme: Hot Fire Coaster

Point 1

Point 2

Point 3

Point 4

Point 5

Speed

Calculations

Picture of the Outcome

Video

Feedback

This project was an interesting project. I feel that it would be a lot better if we were able to use pre-made templates because it was very difficult to actually construct some parts like the loop and the camelback humps. Some pros was that it was a fun project to actually create, but it would have been more fun if we choose to do it willingly and it wasn’t so pressured (the four design elements). It helped me to figure out how much speed I needed to make the marble roll around and how much speed was too much speed. In the end, I would rate this project a 7/10 just because of how frustrating it was during some times which took away from the fun aspect of it.