In science class we had to design a roller coaster and go on a simulator to see if it would actually work. Before we could do that we had to look up information about roller coasters and how they're made and built. The purpose of this project was to see what forces and laws affect the building of roller coasters. One thing people building roller coasters have to look at is Newton's Three Laws of Motion. They affect if a roller coaster design will work. Sometimes a roller coaster can get stuck or crash through the station, and these laws can decide if it does that. The first law is an object at rest stays at rest unless acted on by an outside force, and an object in motion stays in motion in a straight line unless acted on by an outside force. The first law is also called the law of inertia. Inertia basically means the same as the first law. The second law is the acceleration of and object depends on the mass of the object and size of the net force applied. Acceleration is the rate at which the velocity changes. Velocity is the speed of an object in a certain direction. The third law is when a force is applied to an object; the object exerts an equal force in the opposite direction.                                                                                                 

          As I said before we had to look up information about roller coasters. I was in a group of four and each person had a role. They were design engineer, physicist, historian, and lawyer. For example the design engineer could look up the materials used in roller coasters and how the designs have changed. The physicist could look up the forces that affect roller coasters and how they are tested. The historian could look up the history of roller coasters and the record holders today. The lawyer could look up different laws and regulations of park rides and different lawsuits that have happened. I was the design engineer and I learned that roller coasters used to be just made of wood, but now most are made of steel. The wood they would use was Southern Yellow Pine or Douglas fir. Most of the design of a roller coaster is done on the computer.

          After we finished our research we went on a coaster creator and designed different roller coasters, but not all of them worked. One failed coaster I made had too much energy and with its momentum crashed through the station. Then I finally made one that worked. It worked because it got enough energy on the first hill to make it through the ride, but not too much that it would crash through the station. That wasn't the one we used as our coaster though. We used a different one that worked for that same reason. We ended up calling it the Abominable Taco, because one person was thinking of tacos and the other the Abominable Snowman.

This is my failed coaster.

This is the coaster our team used.