Roller Coaster Project Blog - 2/18/18

Summary: A roller coaster ride is a thrilling experience which involves a lot of physics. Part of the physics of a roller coaster is the physics of work and energy. The ride often begins as a chain and motor which exerts a force on the train of cars to lift the train to the top of a vary tall hill. Once the cars are lifted to the top of the hill, gravity takes over and the remainder of the ride is an experience in energy transformation. At the top of the hill, the cars possess a large amount of potential energy. Potential energy is dependent upon the mass of the object and the height of the object. As the cars descend the first drop they lose much of this potential energy in accord with their loss of height. The cars subsequently gain kinetic energy. Kinetic energy is dependent upon the mass of the object and the speed of the object. Therefore, their original potential energy is transformed into kinetic energy.

Backward-Looking: How much did you know about the subject before we started?
Even though I had been excited for a very long time to do the roller coaster unit, and to do the study of physics, I never actually went out to study it. The topic of physics is very interesting to me so I am very glad that I didn't learn about it before, so I could have a better experience now. The things I did know before we started were things that would help in doing calculations, such as rate conversion and the formulas for speed and velocity.

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 enjoyed this project and the overall execution of this project by my team and I. I enjoyed that fact that we were creative with how our track looked, that we had things that were different from other teams and we took some risk in our track. One thing I wish we could've improved upon was the decoration, it wasn't the best looking roller coaster compared to some of our peers, so I wish we had spent a bit more time working on decoration.

Outward-Looking: What grade would you give it? Why? I do not want to be harsh on my team mates, and say we did a bad job, but if I were to give it a grade, I would give it the grade of a B+. This is due to the fact that even though we have a good understanding of the topic of physics, and the roller coaster itself meets the requirements, the decoration could be better. If we would've cleaned up the tape a bit, and made sure the decorations looked nice, then I would've given it an A, but until then, I would give it a B+.

Forward-Looking: What would you like to spend more time on in school? If we could've had some more time to work on this project in school, I would've liked to evenly distribute the amount of work done regarding the questions, and if we had some more time we could've made the decoration better. Near the end of the project, I feel that we were in a rush to finish the analyses questions and to finish the decorations. This resulted in not so pretty decorations and an uneven amount of work distribution regarding the analyses questions.