Physics of Amusement Park Rides!

On 17 October 1998, a group of physics enthusiasts from Penn State Mont Alto took a trip to Adventure World, an amusement park south of Baltimore. The attendees were: Eric Banks, David Eaton and Chrissy, Leslie MacDonald (coaster enthusiast and photographer), Nathan Merris, Garrett Shriver and Corey Woods. I served as the driver of the van. We all had a great time, we learned a little physics and some of us pushed ourselves beyond our comfortable limits on some of these rides. We'd all like to thank the Penn State Mont Alto CSAFC (Campus Student Activity Fee Committee) and Dr. Lew Jillings (the campus Director of Academic Affairs) for financial support for this wonderful activity. I personally would like to thank Leslie MacDonald for suggesting this out of class activity, and Andrea Christopher for lots of help in preparing a proposal to the CSAFC.

The Pirate Ship:

Here are a few shots of the gang riding the Pirate Ship! In the first photo, Corey, Garrett and I are getting ready for the ride. Corey is carefully checking out his accelerometer, while Garrett and I are just waiting for the start of the ride.

Below, Corey, Garrett and I are really in the swing of things! Corey is checking his accelerometer to see that we're experiencing zero-g at the top of the swing.	Nathan, Chrissy and David were riding at the other end of the ship; they are also experiencing zero-g, but you can see that by looking at Chrissy's hair!

The pirate ship is basically a large pendulum. At the top of each swing, the paritcipant feels a moment of zero-g. Gravity is still working, but for that short period of time, the force between the person and his or her seat drops to zero. Without that support force, we accelerate as gravity dictates, and we feel weightless. On this ride, the vertical accelerometer will indicate zero-g at the top of the swing.

Roller Coasters:

Here are Garrett and Corey riding one of the roller coasters at Adventure World. If you click on the photo, you'll see a blown up photo; Corey (with his accelerometer) and Garrett are in the center of the photo.

We rode a total of 3 roller coasters at Adventure World: the Mind Eraser, Roar! and the Wild one (pictured above). Corey, Garrett and Chrissy measured 3-g and 3.5-g turns on the Mind Eraser and Roar!, respecitvely, using vertical accelerometers. David concentrated his efforts on the horizontal accelerometer, and measured an angle of 70 degrees: this corresponds to about 3-g. The horizontal accelerometer is much harder to use than the vertical one, so David is to be congratulated. Incidnetally, Adventure World advertises Roar! as having 3.5-g turns, and that's precisely what we measured...how about that...honest advertising.

The Mind Eraser is a suspended coaster, and the short ride is packed with fast turns, loops and barrel rolls. Roar! looks like an old-fashioned wooden coaster, but it was designed with the best features of many older wooden coasters. It had particularly exciting transitions between high-g turns and zero-g drops. The coaster pictured above was a little older, and by far the most physically punishing one. I'll take the barrel rolls!

Free-fall Tower:

	To the right, Nathan and Garrett are locked into their seats for the free-fall tower drop. Notice that both have their vertical accelerometers at the ready!
In the photo at the left, Corey, David, Chrissy and I are also locked in and ready to go. Even though Chrissy wasn't a physics student, she kept a close eye on her accelerometer the whole day!


	In the upper left photo, Nathan looks like he's having second thoughts (but he's keeping an eye on his accelerometer!). In the upper right, we're at the top and ready to drop. In the lower left, we're on our way back to earth!

This ride is really straightforward. You ride up; you drop back. We had about 3 seconds of free-fall (zero-g). When the brakes came on, we experienced a short period of approximately 4-g!

The Iron Eagle

	I won't even go into this (nor did I go on this ride!). Notice, in the middle row, David, Chrissy, Nathan, Garrett and Corey, still carrying their accelerometers.

	Here's the Iron Eagle at work. The arm pivots around its center, and the platform also rotates. There isn't much to say about the physics involved, but I'm told it was fun. Please notice that I'm not on the ride. In the picture just above, you can see the gang (David, Chrissy, Nathan, Garrett and Corey)...click on the photo above for a blow-up.
	For the record, here are Eric and myself "riding" the Iron Eagle.

Last updated: Sun Mar 28 12:37:48 EDT 1999 by Mike Doncheski

Email me!