Marble Roller Coaster Design Project

Draw your design on paper.

Marble roller coaster design project.

Students apply high school level differential calculus and physics to the design of two dimensional roller coasters in which the friction force is considered as explained in the associated lesson. Make the stimulating challenge of creating a roller coaster part of your next stem science technology engineering and math project. Your marble must not fall off until it gets to the end of the track. You ll build a roller coaster track for marbles using foam pipe insulation and masking tape and see how much of an initial drop is required to get the marble to loop the loop.

Make sure your marble starts at the top of a hill. Work in groups of 2 or 3 utilizing your knowledge of newton s 3 laws of motion to create a paper roller coaster that can carry a marble for the longest period of time without stopping. By using the engineering design process student teams are tasked with creating a thrilling ride. Build a marble roller coaster from foam pipe insulation in this fun science project.

Introduce the parameters of the design challenge and the vocabulary words criteria and constraints. Using a piece of corrugated cardboard as a base assemble your track according to your plan. But when you get it right it can be exhilarating. You can build one just for fun or do this as a science fair project.

Roller coasters rely on two types of energy to operate. Figure out how many supports and pieces of track you will need. Build your own marble roller coaster in this project and find out. This homemade roller coaster is definitely one of the most fun science projects but it is also one of the most challenging.

Gravitational potential energy and kinetic energy. It is not easy to get it right the first time. The model should be designed for a glass marble. Let s talk about roller coasters.

Before you start building plan out a design for your roller coaster. You have to experiment with different height and different loop sizes to make a good roller coaster marble run. The criteria are in italics the constraints are in bold a. Build a roller coaster with 2 hills and one loop.

Rubric paper roller coasters objective.