By Andrew Walsh
awalsh@wbcowqel.com
Freshmen Samantha Peck, Hannah Crabtree, and Jordan Kincaid took home top prize in Wynford’s 14th annual Roller Coaster of a Night contest.
This event is a physics challenge for the integrated science students, a freshmen level course. They are tasked with designing an operating model of a roller coaster, from materials of their choice, and demonstrating that before teacher Lee Rowlinson and a panel of judges. This year the judges were engineers from General Electric.
Each roller coaster had to contain the following basic elements: a first hill, a loop, a second hill, and a 180 degree turn. This 180 turn was to demonstrate proper transfer of kinetic energy. Students were also awarded bonus points if a properly installed lighting system at the bottom of the track could be powered by that same kinetic energy.
Peck, Crabtree, and Kincaid went through several design and material changes as they, “struggled to get the 2nd turn to actually work.” Their final choice for track material was a heavy foam tubing, cut into a half-pipe shape, but they had previously attempted to use PVC pipe. They were the only group to use a heavy, metal marble as their choice of roller coaster “car.”
The girls were each awarded with a $5 gift card to Bob Evans.