By: Sean Elliot Aaron Ross Kevin Lovell

Introduction Our goal was to design and build a roller coaster that transports an object from a start point to an end point in 15 seconds. The final device must fold into a.5m by.5m by.5m box. We were able to find all materials needed for this assignment except a foam tube ($5), roll of duct tape ($3.50), and a spring ($2).

Overview The steel ball starts in a tube in front of a spring. After being launched, the ball goes up the tube and into a “funnel”. From this funnel, the ball drops down onto a series of seven tracks running back and forth down to the bottom of the device. The spring is located in a four inch long PVC pipe which is inside the foam tube. A string, which is tied to the spring, is located on the other side of the wall and used to pull the spring back when the ball is ready to be launched.

Energy Breakdown A ball with a mass of.009 kg on the end of a compressed spring with k constant of 210 N/M PE= ½kx 2 = ½(210)(.12) 2 PE=1.512 J The ball leaves our shooter at a velocity of 18.33m/s. ½(210)(.12)= ½(.009)v 2 V=18.33 m/s Velocity of the ball on each PVC pipe is.703 m/s. (.4572m)=0+((0+V 2 )/2)(1.3s) V 2 =.703 m/s 2. Acceleration of ball on each PVC pipe is.54m/s 2. V2=V1+a(t) = (.703m/s)=(0)+(a)(1.3s) 2 a=.54m/s 2

Conclusion The overall time it took to build our device was around 7 hours. In the process of building our device we ran into a few problems. We had trouble finding a strong enough spring. There was a lot of trial and error to figure out where our ball would hit in the funnel to make it spin. We had some trouble with holding the PVC pipes on the sides of the walls until we discovered hot glue. In the end, our device worked very well.