Clown Town - The Clown Coaster 2/14

Image by Liliana Echeverria

Rollercoasters are very popular amusement park attractions, and for this project, we had to create our own. Using some insulation tubing, straws and tape to make a rollercoaster was difficult, but in the end, we created a coaster with a successful loop, turn and hill. After building the rollercoaster, we needed to use our knowledge of physics to find out the points of highest and lowest kinetic and potential energy and positive and negative acceleration.

The point of highest kinetic energy is where the marble is moving the fastest, which would be that the beginning of the rollercoaster at the drop. The point of lowest kinetic energy is at the very top of the rollercoaster because the marble hasn't been dropped yet. Potential energy would be the highest at the top of the ride before it starts, and it would be the lowest at the drop, where the marble is going the fastest to climb the loop. The acceleration is positive when the marble is travelling down the drop and down the hills. It is negative when the marble is going up the loop and up the hills.


Backward-Looking: What problems did you encounter while working on this piece? How did you solve them?

While we were building our rollercoaster, we had some issues with the marble falling off of the track at the turn. This was because the track was not at the correct angle, and the marble kept bumping against the edge of the support, which caused it to fall off. We troubleshooted this by holding the track in place until the marble was able to make it to the end. Then we used straws to hold the track up. Once the track was perfectly balanced, the marble was able to travel safely to the end.


Inward-Looking: How do you feel about this piece of work? What parts of it do you particularly like? Dislike? Why? What did/do you enjoy about this piece or work?
I am really proud of this rollercoaster. I like that we were able to troubleshoot the track. I enjoyed decorating our rollercoaster and making it look like a real one.


Outward-Looking: If someone else were looking at the piece, what might they learn about who you are?

When people look at this piece ow work, they might learn that I am very creative and I love working with people who can help me get the job done. I like being able to trust people, and our rollercoaster reflects that. I'm a very creative person and that also shines through in the decorations that we put around the ride.


Forward-Looking: What would you change if you had a chance to do this piece over again?
If I could redo this project, I owuld've spent more time on the math and calculations part and making sure that the whole ride was balanced before I actually started decorating. After all of the decorations were on, we had some trouble with the marble falling off of the track, and we had to pay more attention to that.