Team Twisterness Ben Peters A mechanical engineer out of Oak Ridge High School, Knoxville, TN. Logan Taylor An electrical engineer out of Pope John Paul II, Nashville, TN. Cody Stricklin A mechanical engineer out of Tullahoma High School, Tullahoma, TN. Erik Suenkel A computer engineer out of Karns High School, Knoxville, TN Ben Logan Cody Erik

In our cleverly laid out half meter box, the Twisterness lays dormant. It is a maze of PVC pipe and insulation that will leave you inebriated. Slightly angled down hill, this device circles around a center point until it finally drops into a cradle to bring this exciting ride to a screeching, rolling stop. The supports are built with no thoughts of expense in mind. This rollercoaster is kept stable by the finest dowels and green wire that can be found in Estabrook. Often mistaken with a NASCAR track, our device does more than just go left, it goes down.

 The Twisterness uses gravity as its main form of energy.  The stored energy (mgh) for it is (.004 kg *.49 m * 9.81 m/s ) = J  Gravity is the obvious pick when it comes to energy for roller coasters.  It goes from potential energy to kinetic energy when the marble is released and starts down the track

Here are a couple things we believe didn’t go to plan…  Free floating pieces - every piece needs a support, this way the pieces wouldn’t shift and every run would be closer to the same.  Connection sites - when the marble moves from insulator to PVC it hits a bump which take a lot of the momentum away.  Turns - the insulation used needed to be cut open to get the ball through, but at the same time, if the ball didn’t have enough momentum it would simply fall off.

 Roller coasters are a fun attraction but the energy required for them to work is quiet intricate.  We conclude that energy is lost in the movement from top to bottom shown by the equation :  (½ mv^2 + mgh = ½ mv^2 + mgh + energy loss )