1. EF 151 Roller Coaster Project Team: Go Vols
Josh Ferguson
Erick Foster
John Collins
John Hungerford

2. Preliminary Design Simple design so it would be easy to build
Long coil to eat up time
Small ramp at the end
Funnel to catch the rolling ball
Tail at the end of the funnel to eat up more time

3. Problems Encountered Support for tubing
Tube kinking up and squishing closed
Tube bending and swaying
Particles and PVC pipe debris getting in tube
Too short of a run

4. Final Design

5. Materials PVC pipe Clear plastic tubing Wire hangers Scrap wood
Nails and screws
Soda can
Metal bearing
Hot glue
Lots and Lots of Duct Tape!!!!

6. Calculations
By using the Conservation of Energy equation, we were able to calculate the ball’s theoretical speed at the bottom of the ramp.
ft./sec
By using the trajectory equation and a few experimental runs, we were able to determine the actual velocity.
ft./sec
Finally, by using the Conservation of Energy equation again, we could determine the energy lost during the run.
ft.-lbs

7. Conclusion
Our design seemed simple enough, however, when actually building the coaster, we ran into many problems and delays.
The actual building process took much longer than expected because of these problems; we spent approximately 12 hours.
This project was kind of fun, and it allowed our group to use the lessons learned in EF 151 in real life physical applications.