Rip Roaring Coasters And NOVA: Roller Coaster

I grew up with an understanding of the sciences by watching aged VHS tapes rented from a cheerfully lonesome library in the Atlanta boondocks. When I wasn’t possessed with a fascination for the science videos I viewed, the impressive stories from the video games I played grasped my attention. Naturally, my budding mind would cherish any seemingly bizarre experience (that is, something that removed me from my everyday existence and presented me with enchantment), and throughout my life the most prominent instances of whimsey I experienced were with the technology I used. Subsequently, I would associate these experiences with what I perceived to be magic, and my passion for such magic grew to the extent that I found myself a front row seat
at the world’s greatest magic show: science and technology.
When I was a toddler my family and I frequented the Lewis A.
Ray library of Smyrna, the Atlanta skyline just visible over the surrounding trees and foliage. Chiefly, we undertook these visits with great regularity for me to temporarily satisfy my insatiable craving for knowledge. While there, I never missed the opportunity to seize my two favorite VHS tapes whenever available: Popular Mechanics for Kids: Rip Roaring Roller Coasters and NOVA: Roller Coaster!. These videos nourished me with both the charm of creation and the justification behind how to assemble and operate roller coasters. Evidently, I admired the concept of humans possessing the ability to develop a scaled-down railroad that can successfully endure hairpin turns, stomach-dropping slopes, and breathtaking inversions. However, I considered such developments to be beyond the bounds of imagination: they were exceptionally astonishing, bewitching...impossible! But all of a sudden such madness made sense once the videos proposed the concepts of designing and engineering, and such explanations vanquished my doubts accordingly. The films first introduced me to the world of technology and mechanics, equipping me further with a passion for learning. My interest in the construction of roller coasters ultimately uncovered my ambition as a seeker of in-depth knowledge and, eventually, this ambition carried on into the other facets of my life, sparking my interest in methodical study, where I began to approach everyday
situations from a curious and inquisitive perspective.
One evening, I heard noises coming from the basement, and I resolved to utilize my rejuvenated enthusiasm for learning to check into the matter.
My sister and I decided to investigate the space and found our parents playing an old Super Nintendo Entertainment System hooked up to a vintage television set with antennas protruding from the top. Upon our arrival, they passed their controllers to us, allowing us to experience video games for the first time. I instantly fell in love with gaming, from the sensationally beautiful graphics to the ability to control a character on screen through pressing the “right” direction on the d-pad. The perplexing amazement gaming offered me paralleled to the bewilderment I experienced when watching the roller coaster VHS tapes, where, nearly every day when I got home from kindergarten, I would look forward to either playing Super Mario World or Donkey Kong Country. Moreover, I began collecting vintage and modern video games and consoles, and the vibrant characters I played as served as an inspiration for my art, where I frequently drew them in my notebooks and on printer paper. Both experiences with roller coasters and video games impregnated my mind with curiosity for how humans (the magicians) could conceive such physical and digital experiences
(magic).
Conclusively, my experiences involving technology have illustrated my curiosity of the world, where my exposure to both roller coaster construction and video game software further developed my interests in the sciences and ultimately aided in my decision for a career path in the STEM fields. Each year, instructors would inquire my fellow peers and I over what we wanted to do when we grew up. I never could provide a solid answer to such questions. Nevertheless, I did have an idea: I wanted to escape the magician’s mystified audience, and transition into becoming a magician myself who could create and stimulate fantasy.