8 ms·
MIT students build a roller coaster in one week
- afarrell 12y agoThis is attempted every year, the rush chairs were just on-point with project management this year.
- fortawesome 12y agoYep. Been a big rush event for a while now. IIRC, Mark Feldmeier was a big part of the first incarnation. Such an awesome dorm. Always making stuff. It was (is?) a big center of roof and tunnel hacking. One guy from my floor went out every night for a couple of years trying to collect all of Sophicles' sign-ins. And don't forget the Oddball Olympics. I remember the Master Lock picking event usually being won in less than 10 seconds.
- peter_l_downs 12y agoYou know Feldmeier? Awesome! I'm living in SH right now and he's always coming by and sparking interesting conversations. A month or two ago we held a showing of his re-soundtracked Metropolis – all techno music instead of the original score. What a great guy!
- fortawesome 12y agoFeldmeier is my candidate for the most interesting man in the world. I remember stories about how one summer while interning at Apple, he voluntarily lived under a bridge. Then there was the year he lived in one of the 2W closets while I was there (2W, not the closet). He's one of my favorite East Campus folks to tell stories about. Awesome guy.
- fortawesome 12y agoOh. And he saved my life once. I'm not kidding. Kept me from going off the EC roof while sending a couch off.
- ehmorris 12y agoSounds a little derivative of Giorgio Moroder's Metropolis
- afarrell 12y agoHe's a pretty cool dude. I haven't seen him since moving down to ATX.
- jjoonathan 12y agoTo be fair, that sounds about right for Master Lock... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAwMMVPalr0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAwMMVPalr0
- willvarfar 12y agoDid they point out to all passengers that there was no stop block at the top of that final incline do you think? Get the mind racing that would ;)
- wolfgke 12y agoI think the end is as least as high as the beginning, so by energy conversation there should be no danger. Additionally there is probably so much friction in the system that it should not be necessary.
- willvarfar 12y agoI did not suggest it was unsafe. I was suggesting they say to each new passenger "have you seen there's nothing to stop you going off the end?" just before they release the cart...
- demarq 12y agoand "is pete back from the hospital?"
- im2w1l 12y agoWhat about tailwind?
- frozenport 12y agoUnless your 'bros' give you a push :-)
- wolfgke 12y agoArgument accepted. :-)
- brador 12y agoHow do they get it back to the starting position? It's not shown in the vid.
- justfane 12y agoIt doesn't have enough momentum to fully go up the last 'slope' so it rolls back down with the momentum to get back to the starting position... I believe that's what i gathered from the end of the page.
- aidos 12y agoAt least it might have if that pesky physics hadn't gotten in the way, again. They probably just pull it up with a rope or something.
- aetherson 12y agoThey just reverse the arrow of entropy real quick to get it back to its starting direction. Remember to reengage physics before starting the ride with the next rider.
- asportking 12y agoThey had people manually pushing it back up the last two humps, and then they had a rope they hooked to the cart to pull it up the last hump. Source: was one of the people pushing it back over the humps. Surprisingly a sketchy job - you have to really go for it to get it over the middle hump, and if you don't make it then you have to bail really quickly.
- fit2rule 12y agoAnd why not just rope?
- aetherson 12y agoYou'd either need to thread the rope through some kind of guides that would make it follow the contour of the track (which would almost certainly introduce vast friction losses in the force on the rope), or else the force on your rope if you just let it go freely through the air is going to be at vastly the wrong vector for efficient pulling of the sled as it goes over the secondary rises. I suspect you'd find that it becomes unfeasibly hard to pull the sled over the second rises via a rope that is pulled from the top of the primary tower.
- iammaxus 12y agoWe are proud to say that Ben Katz, one of the leaders and designers of the project interned at Formlabs over the summer and used our printers to make a beautiful detailed model of the roller coaster. http://formlabs.com/en/company/blog/2014/08/15/formlabs-engineering-meet-ben-katz/ http://formlabs.com/en/company/blog/2014/08/15/formlabs-engi...
- thejerz 12y agoThere's something about "roller coaster" and "built in one week" that doesn't sit well.
- baldfat 12y agoYou kidding me I am seriously thinking this is a "doable" project for the annual friends picnic in June.
- fit2rule 12y agoCome on, really? Plenty of great houses have been built in a week, lots of other workable structures in less time ..
- sucramb 12y agoAnd skyscrapers in two weeks... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajlUVSiUvWg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajlUVSiUvWg
- eru 12y agoMost fairground attractions are assembled in a few hours. Including roller coasters.
- lnanek2 12y agoKind of lame they weren't allowed to put a loop in. You are just as well off sledding down a hill at what they ended up with.
- papad 12y agoHa totally agree. The loops and vicious turns are central to a roller coaster (and being tied to the track). Without those, sledding is way better cause you can get some serious airtime on the right hills and have some control over your direction too. Overall a neat project for a large college team to work together on but the end product doesn't appear that functional/fun.
- matt_morgan 12y agoDoesn't appear fun? Stop thinking for a minute! I want to ride it. My son would love to ride it.
- papad 12y agoYou definitely have the right perspective. If I put my kid's hat on, it definitely would be fun. Doing the simplest things with my nieces and nephews are extremely fun :)
- Retra 12y agoLoops are extremely dangerous if not done properly...
- pavel_lishin 12y agoI believe that the cart is tied down to the track - you can see it in the video, there are wheels on both sides of the board.
- msandford 12y agoDid anybody else laugh at the idea of using 2 grade 5 1" bolts per 2x4? I know wood is strong and all, but it's not that strong! They could have held it all together quite successfully with some 3" deck screws or 3/8" lag bolts. By using such big bolts they actually made the structure less safe because they had to drill very large holes; those holes made the wood weaker than it otherwise would have been. I don't know who at MIT insisted that they use 1" bolts but that person had no business sticking their nose in.
- moeamaya 12y agoBen mentions his frustrations in his blog: Despite my personal opinion that these changes were unnecessary and frankly absurd (in addition to costly: 1" bolts cost around $10 apiece), we didn't really have any choice but to make the changes. After all, for the Cambridge and MIT to let us build this thing and have people ride it, we absolutely needed our plans to be signed off by a professional engineer. The Roller Coaster used to be an annual tradition but was put on hold the past few years because of EHS regulations and safety concerns. I know they really wanted to build it this year, so they obliged with the request.
- msandford 12y agoSeems like that PE maybe shouldn't have a stamp. I'm not saying they're definitely incompetent and should have it taken away, but it kind-of makes you wonder.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- tonyarkles 12y agoI'm guessing it was "err on the side of overkill". Probably better than "err on the side of someone dying" while not wanting to bill too many hours doing detailed analysis to figure out what the cheapest solution would be that would still meet safety requirements.
- rtkwe 12y ago
- leephillips 12y agoAren't they a little young to be building roller coasters?
- ykl 12y ago"Why yes. Yes [they] are."
- chrisbennet 12y agoPhineus and Ferb reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdmvmw_Ra80 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdmvmw_Ra80
- jpmattia 12y agoExcuse the inside baseball, but old 5W EC dude from '86 raises his glass (of coffee at this hour) in your guys' general direction.
- losvedir 12y ago5W '07 checking in. I think the first roller coaster for EC rush was around my junior year. I'm glad to see the tradition is still going strong!
- ackalker 12y ago"EHS said No Upside-Down People. Period." Well, they didn't say anything about cows, did they? Hey guys, you're MIT hackers. Involve a cow, will you? Upside-down, if at all possible...
- pokpokpok 12y agoI welcome any hack that involves consenting parties
- brianpgordon 12y agoIt would be easier to calculate the forces involved as well, since, as everyone knows, cows are approximately spherical.
- kdavis 12y agoNext time start it off the top of the Green Building!
- sangwen 12y agoLook up to these east campus kids!!
- ada1981 12y agoI would have liked to see a loop combined with a gyroscopic chair, so no person is actually upside-down. It also seems like these are the sorts of things you are supposed to just build without university approval ala Real Genius.
- fortawesome 12y agoMIT used to ignore this sort of thing and let it happen. After some students died roof and tunnel hacking, the attitude slowly changed, sadly. You can't do it without approval anymore.
- Zigurd 12y agoI don't recall any deaths from roof and tunnel hacking. There are serious potential hazards. There is a case to be made for securing the roof of building 54 to deter suicides. But it appears that the much stronger security measures and much stiffer punishment for unauthorized roof and tunnel hacking since the '80s were not motivated by fatal events.
- fortawesome 12y agoYou are quite correct. Apparently I was mis-remembering. After doing some digging, I found the incident I was thinking of: In January 2006 a freshman fell through a skylight and broke several bones: http://tech.mit.edu/V125/N65/65skylight.html http://tech.mit.edu/V125/N65/65skylight.html. This seems to be what started changing attitudes.
- Zigurd 12y agoHere's another one. East Campus freshmen are evidently hard to kill: http://tech.mit.edu/V119/N62/62shaft.62n.html http://tech.mit.edu/V119/N62/62shaft.62n.html
- ordinathorreur 12y agoAs a skateboarder I could see this being a lot of fun. It would be great if the project could be donated to a local skatepark once taken down.
- andrewbarba 12y agoBelieve it or not, we have zero skateparks in Boston. There are plans to build a pretty extensive one however I haven't seen any real progress being made.
- crazyjayd 12y agoI was going to say, I hope someone got the chance to ride a skateboard on there. I would. We have a few parks outside of Boston. Nothing crazy, but better than nothing.
- cdnsteve 12y agoGet rid of the end vertical and make it launch you into a foam pit. I can see some "midnight" modifications for a 1.1 release.
- TylerE 12y agoThis is pretty much the gold standard, built by ONE guy... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gcoV3MkmY8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gcoV3MkmY8 Took a lot longer than a week, I'm sure, but it's an actual proper coaster. He later went on to work for one of the coaster companies for awhile IIRC.
- Animats 12y agoThe support structure may be overdesigned, but that's OK. What bothers me is how the cart attaches to the track. Here's a view of that: http://formlabs.com/en/company/blog/2014/08/27/from-3d-print-to-rideable-rollercoaster/ http://formlabs.com/en/company/blog/2014/08/27/from-3d-print... The retention wheels are just riding on the underside of the plywood sheets. If they had a jam at a track joint, those might tear through the plywood or break off, allowing the car to derail and fall off the track. Unsupported plywood edges are weak and not good working surfaces. Here's a standard roller coaster wheel assembly, with six wheels. http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/files/dsc_0207_3.jpg http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/files/dsc_0207_3.jpg Any 3 wheels can fail without serious trouble.
- hollyfeld 12y agoOh hey, and look at the 18" long cracks in the plywood you can see in that picture. But at least they used 1" carriage bolts to hold it all together.
- Someone 12y agoAny 3? If the top two fail, the assembly drops from the rail, doesn't it? If the bottom two break off, the thing could derail in a negative g track part. I would think that is only true if we consider that cars have more than one of these.
- canjobear 12y agoWhile this is awesome work, I find it sad that those involved seem to have cheerfully acquiesced to the diktats of a safety- and image-obsessed administration. Or perhaps their true attitude just wasn't appropriate for this blog post.