Roller Coaster Physics
Your Mission: Oaks Park's regrettably had to close their beloved Looping Thunder ride and would like a video made that explains why they shut the ride down. Here’s the Looping Thunder ride, which was the only ride in Oregon with a flip!The promotions and events manager for the park was quoted by KOIN:
“It was time for something new and exciting, so in the spring we will be opening a brand new, much more extreme roller coaster,” MacKay said. “It’ll be something really unique and new for Oregon, never seen anything like it here.”
The new coaster, on its way to the park from Europe, has more inversions — that is, riders will go upside down more often. It also has a lower height limit, opening it up to shorter kids.
But this day was bittersweet for the staff, she said.
“People love this ride, have had a great time with their families on this ride,” MacKay told KOIN 6 News. But “people have been clamoring for something more extreme, something more exciting and we are going to deliver on that.”
"Why can't the Looping Thunder ride just go faster?" - you, right now, probably
You could take footage yourself or use another video and edit over it. You may work with 1 partner, who does not have to be in your Physics period, but you may also work alone.
“It was time for something new and exciting, so in the spring we will be opening a brand new, much more extreme roller coaster,” MacKay said. “It’ll be something really unique and new for Oregon, never seen anything like it here.”
The new coaster, on its way to the park from Europe, has more inversions — that is, riders will go upside down more often. It also has a lower height limit, opening it up to shorter kids.
But this day was bittersweet for the staff, she said.
“People love this ride, have had a great time with their families on this ride,” MacKay told KOIN 6 News. But “people have been clamoring for something more extreme, something more exciting and we are going to deliver on that.”
"Why can't the Looping Thunder ride just go faster?" - you, right now, probably
You could take footage yourself or use another video and edit over it. You may work with 1 partner, who does not have to be in your Physics period, but you may also work alone.
Oaks Park wants to use your video to explain how the ride
works, so people feel like the science has been done and aren’t so afraid of
the flip. Park visitors have also been asking questions about why the roller coaster
doesn’t have engines and where all the energy goes at the end of the ride.
Questions to consider (mention
these ideas in your video):
●
Where does the roller coaster get its energy?
●
Why is it called a roller coaster?
●
When does the ride have the most Gravitational
Potential Energy? What about the most Kinetic Energy?
●
When is the ride the slowest? The fastest? Why?
●
At the end of the ride, the cars come to a stop at
ground level - where did all of that energy go?
Math: Here is a template you can use to organize the project - you can print it out, but it's better if you log-in and click File -> Make a Copy to get a copy in your own Google Drive so you can edit it, then click "Share" and type in your partner's e-mail address so they can edit it too!
Please mention the most important of these numbers in your
video, then turn in the work you did to calculate them, along with a labeled drawing of the roller coaster with at least 5 pie graphs at different parts of the roller coaster.
Checklist:
____Questions answered (do not read the questions in your video, just answer them)
____Math Table completed (see template)
____Important numbers converted into miles per hour so you can use that number in the video (use Google!)
____Drawing of Roller Coaster - with at least 5 pie or bar graphs!
____Rough Script for Video (could just be the answers to the questions put together into a paragraph that flows naturally)
____Video - you can upload it to Youtube or simply show me the video after school.
Checklist:
____Questions answered (do not read the questions in your video, just answer them)
____Math Table completed (see template)
____Important numbers converted into miles per hour so you can use that number in the video (use Google!)
____Drawing of Roller Coaster - with at least 5 pie or bar graphs!
____Rough Script for Video (could just be the answers to the questions put together into a paragraph that flows naturally)
____Video - you can upload it to Youtube or simply show me the video after school.
