Links to other pages for this project:

Fermilab LInC Online

Roller Coaster

Design

Page for Spring Physics Students

Index to sections on this page:

INTRODUCTION

INVESTIGATION

PLANNING

PRESENTATION

INTRODUCTION

You work for the division of a company that designs and builds amusement park rides. You have been given the task of analyzing the feasability of a new ride before it goes into production. You will determine whether the new ride meets certain criteria of what makes rides "fun" so that people will pay to ride them and what makes them safe. You will use the list of features generated by the fall physics class (the research team of the company) that was posted on this web site. This list of features was used by the computer assisted drafting class at your school (the design engineering division of the company) to design the new ride. The design was then passed on to the material processing class at your school (the manufacturing division of the company). You now have the prototype from them and you must test this and analyze it to determine whether it meets the criteria developed by the fall physics class. If it passes your inspection, the ride can go into production.

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INVESTIGATION (What you need to do:)

• Access the list of criteria formed by the fall physics class. This is located on the saved data page of this web site.
• If further detail is needed, access the web sites that they listed as their sources in determining these criteria.
• Design an instrument by which you will analyze the prototype that has been built to see whether it meets the criteria. This instrument could include the following steps or others that you think of:
  • Testing the ride with a car and riders of the appropriate scale.
  • Making theoretical calculations of pertinent physical quantities needed at various locations along the ride (ie. velocity, acceleration, angle, force).
  • Contacting an outside expert via email to help you with the analysis.
• Keep a daily journal of your progress and direction. A pre-assessment will be your journal entry for the first day. Details about the journal can be found on the rubrics page.

Roller Coaster Web Sites

Listed below are web sites to help you contact Roller Coaster parks, clubs and designers.

 

Amusement Link: One Source
Amusement Park Books
Coaster Central
Discovery Channel Build a Coaster

The World Wide Guide to Parks, Roller Coasters, Rides, Technology & Topics

 

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PLANNING (What you need to do:)

• Choose a team of 3-5 students in your physics class to work with on this project.
• Read the criteria for the ride on the saved data page.
• Meet with your team to brainstorm how you might analyze the prototype of the ride against the criteria.
• Contact an engineer or designer via email to help you determine your analysis instrument.

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PRESENTATION (What your teacher needs from you:)

• Keep a journal. A pre-assessment will be your journal entry for the first day. Details on what to include are on the rubrics page.
• Your final analysis of the ride and its feasability on the market. This will be posted on the saved data page.
• Your assessment of how this project worked for you, what you liked, and what could be improved. This assessment will be posted on the evaluation page.

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Make sure you check the Rubric periodically.