RoLLER COASTER ENGINEER

Materials:

Track, tap, BB, and a cup

Problem:

You have been hired to create the world’s most thrilling roller coaster. First, you must create a model of your roller coaster to test its performance and safety.

Using the track available, you must build a roller coaster with at least two hills, one loop & one curve.

The marble must travel the entire length of the track. Also, the riders must survive the ride. No falling off!

You may want to place a cup at the end of your track so that you don’t lose your marbles…

Roller coaster procedure:

1. Develop a blueprint in your journal (hypothesis of your roller coaster)

a. Label your 2 hills, loop and curve

2. Measure your tubing in meters.

3. Design your roller coaster according to your blueprint.

a. Adjustments need to be made if your ball does not make the entire track.

b. Time how long it takes the BB to travel the length of your roller coaster

4. With your finished design, collect the amount of time it takes the ball to travel the entire roller coaster.

Length ______m.

Speed ______secs.

5. With your finished design, take various pictures to represent the following concepts:

●Greatest kinetic energy

●Greatest potential energy

●Velocity

●Speed

●Friction

●Balanced Forces (1 location)

●Unbalanced forces causing acceleration ( 3 different locations)

●Newton’s 1st law

●Newton’s 2nd law

●Newton’s 3rd law

PowerPoint Requirements

  1. Go to google PowerPoint and share the document with your teacher and partner.
  2. Slide One Create an introduction slide with the your name and your partner’s name.
  3. Slide Two Make a slide explaining if your hypothesis (blueprint) was valid or not. Explain why the roller coaster was successful or the changes that you had to make in order for the roller coaster to be successful.
  4. Slide Three Explain any improvements that could be made to your roller coaster.
  5. Slide Four Make a slide explaining how you calculated the speed of your roller coaster.
  6. Slide 5-14 Make slides for all of your vocabulary words with a picture of your roller coaster that represents that term and an explanation of how that term corresponds with the picture. Ex.) The forces on the ball are balanced at this point because there is no acceleration.
  7. Greatest kinetic energy
  8. Greatest potential energy
  9. Velocity (Pick a specific point using an arrow to explain velocity)
  10. Acceleration
  11. Friction
  12. Balanced Forces (1 location)
  13. Unbalanced forces causing acceleration
  14. Newton’s 1st law
  15. Newton’s 2nd law
  16. Newton’s 3rd law