Rollercoaster Project

Hello everyone,
It is my first post, so please don’t be judgmental!

Several months ago, I commenced on a long journey to complete a school science project, which required me to construct a functional prototype of a rollercoaster. At first, it appeared like it was going to be a piece of cake, especially since I had several weeks at my disposal as well as a group of other students, but the assignment didn’t turn out to be that straightforward…

I have always felt a bit “worried” when working in a group with others. It’s not like I “hate” working with other people; it’s just that I dislike the concept of my grade depending on other people’s efforts, which is often not “good enough” for me. This was the first red flag in the project, but before I further describe what else could have, did, and didn’t go as intended, I would like to give a little more background on the project as a whole:

“[I] will be responsible for creating an engineering journal which ties the project to the following scientific principles: Force, Velocity, and Acceleration, Magnetic Forces, Newton’s Laws, Kinetic and Potential Energy, Transforming Energy. [I] may also include a collision. This journal, and how [I] tie in [my] project is the bulk of the work for science. [The teacher] will of course want to see the rollercoaster [I] built as well, but [he] will be grading [me] on how well [I] explain the science behind rollercoasters and what [I] built.”

Science Teacher

Everything looked fine until…my teacher posted examples of “great” rollercoaster models:

At this point, all I could do was take a deep breath and give into panic! Later, after numerous discussions between students, parents, and a science teacher, the expectations were lowered significantly. Putting the expectations aside, I will now concentrate on the overall work process.

At first, my group did surprisingly well. We devised a strict plan with tasks and due dates for everyone to follow. And everything appeared to be flowing flawlessly, except for the fact that the model wasn’t going as intended.

First, there was the situation with the overall design of the rollercoaster – nobody wanted to take on the task of designing an intricate model. And the solution? The rollercoaster didn’t have to be overcomplicated, so we settled on a simple yet mind-blowing design. We were going to build a lifting mechanism!

Next, there was the problem with the lifting mechanism – I was the only one who had prior experience with robotics and therefore I was the only person qualified of completing this task. I spent several lengthy nights, but in the end, it was worth the while!

Finally, the last hardship that we encountered was selecting the material for the rails of our rollercoaster. Here are some of the images for each of the five rail types; we decided on the ones built out of foam.

In the end, our group was able to complete the entire project and manufacture the abandoned Shockwave. I learned so much from this project, and I had twice as much fun!

Now, let’s see it in action!

Here is a video of the final model in action!