Roller
Coaster Construction
On
Thursday, March 15, 2001 our class had a very interesting experiment.
First of all, Mrs. McHugh gave each group 3 long rods of flexible foam,
just so that a marble could come crashing down it. She also gave us some
toothpicks to use as connectors. We spent a long time on this, using all
the supplies. One group made a roller coaster called “Spike Mountain”
and it was a scene! The whole roller coaster, even the tunnels, completely
covered in spikes (toothpicks.) Another group was the fastest at eight
feet per second. We discovered that speed is when you take the distance
(how long the track is) and divide it by the time (how many seconds it
took). Speeding down the foam, both of those groups built loops,
and it wasn’t easy! We had to think
in scientific terms when building these roller coasters too!
We
were trying to make the roller coasters fast and fun. Each group did need
more foam rods though, so we will be re-trying this experiment again another
time. Everyone's roller coaster was G-R-E-A-T!!!!
This
report written by the two class reporters, Jamie and Rachel!!!