roller coaster project

Rockin Roller Coaster Research Project By: Stephen Morris Period: 4th

The batman rollercoaster is an extreme, thrilling rollercoaster. The batman rollercoaster was introduced 1997 and, 2,700 feet long! The original installation of the ride is at Six Flags Great America featured a maximum height of 100 feet while the installations to follow reached 105 feet. The rides reach a top speed of 50 miles per hour and exert up to four times the force of gravity. Potential energy, kinetic energy, Newton’s laws of motion and the design of the batman rollercoaster functions.
When you first start off you go up this big hill, you are increasing your potential energy, and when you reach the top you’re at maximum potential energy. At that moment when you start to rush down the other side of the hill you turn that potential energy into kinetic energy. Gravity is the force that pushes you down the hill. Then you’re about to go in a loop, when you’re at the bottom of the loop your kinetic and potential energy is about the same since you about used half of your potential energy from coming down the from the hill. When you’re midway through the loop you have a little bit more potential energy since you’ve gone up a hill and when you are coming down from the loop you use that potential energy. Then you go down another hill and that increases your kinetic energy and decreases your potential energy. Then you start going through all of these turns witch slows you down because of all the friction. Then, very sadly, you are done with this spectacular ride. Newton’s laws of motion affect how the rollercoaster functions. Newton’s first law of motion states that every object in a state of motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it. The rollercoaster will keep on going down the hill at the same constant speed if this was not true. Friction is the external force that slows the rollercoaster down. Newton’s second law of motion states that the acceleration of an object depends on the mass of the object and the amount of force applied. Think about the design, witch we will talk about later, it is a chain lift rollercoaster. If everybody that rode on the rollercoaster had a mass of 200 kg the rollercoaster would be slower unless there was more force from the chain-lifts. Newton’s third law of motion states that whenever one object exerts a force on a second object, the second object exerts an equal and opposite force on the first. Think about the harness that you wear and the seat that you’re sitting in, when pushing against them they are also pushing back on you.
The design connects everything that a roller coaster does. The design of the rollercoaster is a chain lift. In the beginning of the ride you can see the chain that lifts the roller coaster carts. If the designers left that out the roller coaster would not function right. Like I said before the more mass the people on the rollercoaster has the more force it takes to accelerate them. If the chains were there but shorter the rollercoaster would not have enough potential energy to complete the track.
Potential energy, Kinetic energy, Newton’s laws of motion, and the design of the batman roller coaster affect how it functions. Reference Page By: Stephen Morris
Holt Science and Technology Physical Science Textbook http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2003/AlexSchlessingerman.shtml http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dknNAdA8PUQ http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/history/newton3laws.html And my mom, brother, etc. 