Roller Coaster Update 5

My rollercoaster is finally finished. Everything is assebled and 90% of the time it works flawlessly. It has all been painted and cleaned up for the presentation now.


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I have brought the whole contraption to school now and had to make several adjustments to reinstate functionality because the track was slightly off. None of the details broke or got ruined, which is great!

Also I added a siege tower made of popsicle sticks in the middle of a turn, for extra detail.

Roller Coaster Update 4

I have made significant progress in the venture that is my rollercoaster. This physics project has so far cost me several injuries but will be worth it.

In my last post I had built a frame, catapult and had narrowed down the theme.

The next thing that I did was paint it all up to look like a castle, including the wall out front. After this I procrastinated the whole project for about a week. Then I moved on to building the track.

The track was the most annoying part to assemble. At first I couldn't decide if I wanted to start building from the bottom or the top. I began at the bottom and built about 1 meter of the track, going upwards. This idea crashed and burned after the corner didn't work out, so it was torn down and I built top down.

After rereading the guidelines, I learned that I needed to squeeze in at least one loop. It couldn't be too large or the ball bearing would fall off. After figuring out the loop, the rest was relatively simple.
It became a matter of trying not to impale myself on the 1.5" nails that were being used as braces for the rails. When all was built, a lot of things needed twisting, bending, etc. to get the ride to run smoothly.


This is a picture taken shortly after completion of the tracks.

Roller Coaster Update 3

It was a busy week but I have found time to work on my rollercoaster project. I've painted a backdrop for it and started assembling more tracks. For the marble, I have a bunch of 2 centimeter steel ball bearings.

One problem I ran into so far is bending the track around corners and getting it to stay in place. Another one was figuring out how to start the roller coaster off. I wanted to have a small catapult "throw" the ball bearing onto the top of the track. After multiple attempts at making a functioning popsicle stick catapult, I decided it was was better to have it as a part of the decoration and not part of the ride.

Roller Coaster update 2

Today I assembled the frame to build the roller coaster. It was made with 1"x1" posts, cut and screwed together with MDF board serving as the roof and the basethe exterior dimensions of the frame are 75cm by 25 cm and 80cm tall.

I also decided to began experimenting with the track. 3/8" polyethylene tubing is what I plan to use to make a dual rail track. The pieces shown below are held equal distances apart using drywall screws.

Roller Coaster Update 1

I have thought through many themes for my coaster and have settled on one in particular. A medieval "Dragon attack" theme, where a stone wall is attacked by a dragon.

The rollercoaster may start from the mouth of a dragon on the top of the whole thing. The marble will be like a fireball shot from the dragon's mouth, to eventually end up crashing through the front gate of the wall at the end of the ride. (Really rough sketch of wall below.)

After starting from the dragon's mouth the marble will travel down the track, go through some loops, travel more, jump another track somewhere and finish by crossing under the gate in the wall; which will likely be made from styrofoam. This wall will be underneath all the track, making full use of the height limits.

I am thinking of materials needed for the coaster next.


The wall might be 15-20cm tall and About 7cm wide at the bottom

Themes

Here are a few early theme ideas I have come up with so far:

1. Medieval theme (possibly a castle with a dragon at the top of the coaster?)

2. Star Wars (Millenium Falcon in an asteroid field)

3. Western theme (Cowboys and Marbles; maybe start in a saloon)

4. Lord of The Rings (Battle for Helm's Deep)

5. Warhammer 40,000 theme (gothic spires reaching into the sky and a roller coaster weaving in between them)

Beginnings

Roller coasters. Everybody's favourite ride; except mine. Anyways here I am, designing and building a marble roller coaster in the course of three months.

It will need a theme, plenty of loops and must fit inside a 25cm x 75cm x 80cm box.

Before I do anything I need to pick a theme and then come up with a list of ideas to compliment it.