Roller Coaster Project Pt. 2 Project Blog 2/18/18

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Summary:
A rollercoaster is a perfect model, or example, to understand and learn about potential energy, kinetic energy, and more. Our rollercoaster goes through many twists and turns giving the people a fun ride that also comes to a safe and complete stop. First, our rollercoaster loops around a dowel forming a turn as it goes downhill in order to build up enough speed to climb up the hill. Then, it goes up and down the hill into a loop that slowly flattens out to bring the marble to a stop. Since the initial drop is not counted as a hill, at least one turn or loop has to come before the hill so the marble can gain momentum. In our rollercoaster, the marble has the most potential energy right before it is dropped (while it is held atop the rollercoaster) and has the least amount when it comes to a stop because those are the places in which the height of the rollercoaster is the tallest and shortest. Finally, I noticed that the height at which the hill is placed cannot be higher than the initial start because the marble will not have enough acceleration from the downhill spiral to go all the way back up. 


Backward-Looking: What process did you go through to produce this piece?
The building process my team took upon making this rollercoaster took many twists and turns, much like the end result. Unlike some other groups, we chose to spend our first day working with the tubing and finding twists and turns and loops that we would like to incorporate into our final rollercoaster. As time passed, we soon realized that we did not have enough money to make use of each and every component we had in mind so we had to downsize and did so through multiple sketches and trial runs. Even after our final decision, we had to continue to adjust and modify some placements of the dowels and loops because either the tape wore out or the base wasn't strong enough. Throughout all of this, we kept checking the rubric and updating our design brief which was a key element in the success of this project.

Inward-Looking: What did/do you find frustrating about it?

Although this project was fun, there definitely were some bumps along the way. First of all, when working with tape and having been such a main component in the stability of your rollercoaster, it is frustrating when the tape dries out or rips, in turn ruining the entire roller coaster. This is because with one slight movement of the tape the track could turn forcing the marble off the track which happened two our group more than once. We may have temporarily solved this problem with cardboard, but it is extremely frustrating to put time and effort into making a design only to have the marble fall off during its journey.

Outward-Looking: Did you do your work the way other people did theirs? 

During this project, there were a good amount of both similarities and differences between my group's rollercoaster and others. For instance, a difference would be that no other groups ahs a theme of back to the future which I particularly find very appealing to the 'general public' who will be using our rollercoaster. Next, our group has a different variation of turns, hills, and loops. A loop or turn can have multiple meanings and my group incorporated two to three turns, two loops, and one hill whereas other groups had only the basic requirements (one of each). Something my group did similar to others was that we used tape to slow down the marble. Making bumps of tape was not only a cost-effective solution but continuously brought our marble to a safe stop each time. There were some similarities and differences in our rollercoaster compared to other groups, but in the end, our rollercoaster turned out well.

Forward-Looking: What would you change if you had a chance to do this piece over again?

If I had the chance to recreate this rollercoaster project, I would and I would definitely change some things. For starters, I would use cardboard to support the base, to begin with in order to make the base look neater. Also, I would pick a theme that is easier to model. Back to the future is a lovely theme, but it was hard to depict artistically whereas some other groups who did themes such as dragons and snakes have rollercoasters that are easier to understand. As well as that, I would use more cardboard instead of dowels so the rollercoaster wouldn't tip over as much and so that we would have extra money for more tubing so we could cover our entire base. Lastly, I would have a plan of who's going to do what on the first day itself because this was quite a bit of work compacted into a short amount of time. All in all, I would change a few things if I had the chance to redo this project, but overall I enjoyed it.