Roller Coaster Project

After the success shown with the Zippy Fun project, your design team has been asked to design and build a roller coaster for a new amusement park. The owners of the new park want to build six amazing rides and are hoping that your design team can help them meet this goal.

This is a quick project since the owners want to begin as soon as possible. Today, we will discuss the schedule, expectations and criteria of the project. To get focused on the idea of roller coasters, take a few moments to look at this video of coasters at other amusement parks.

What is the first question that comes to your mind?




Upcoming Schedule:

• March 5 - Project Introduction / Design Teams / Initial Thoughts and Design 
• March 7 - PhET Simulation (Satellite Lab) - We will use a skate park simulation to think about roller coaster design.
• March 11 - Design / Build of roller coaster
• March 13 - Complete construction / Test
• March 15 - Final Results - Group Discussion (Write-up due next class)
• March 19 - TBD
• March 21 - Science Inquiry Data Collection Day

Key Vocabulary:

Project Criteria / Information

Each person on a design/build team has skills that are valuable to the group's success. The most successful groups are those who equally share the work and constantly communicate about design, challenges and ideas. For this project, each person will have a "job" that provides certain responsibilities in addition to making sure the project is successfully completed.

• Project Manager - This person's job is to make sure the group is constantly moving forward on the project. He/she is responsible for attending the daily project meeting, organizing the work of group members and making sure that each person on the team is constantly contributing. This person also makes a point to listen to the ideas of all members on the team.
• Construction Manager - This person's job is to make sure that the construction site is a safe environment to work in and that materials are properly used. At the end of each day, this person makes sure that the construction site is as cleaned up as possible.
• Operations Manager - This person's job is to make sure that the activities of the group are well documented on the Team Whiteboard. Someone should be able to quickly glance at the whiteboard to understand the team's design and progress. This person assists the project manager in making sure that each person has a job (on the whiteboard!) and that the project moves along. There is a due date!
• Technical Lead (Note: this job is spread out in 3-person groups) - This person's job is to make sure data is collected with as much precision as possible. Spreadsheets /Tables are used to record data and create graphs. This person coordinates data collection activities.