Maker Challenge: Design the Ultimate Roller Coaster
Channel: John Spencer
Date: 2016-02-23

Here's an illustrated design challenge prompt you can share with your students. Enjoy this video? Please subscribe to the channel: http://bit.ly/spencervideos

You’re going to build the ultimate roller coaster. Okay, you’re not actually going to build a life-size roller coaster that you can ride. Apparently, there’s this thing called safety that schools have to follow. Bummer. But you are going to design and build a model of a roller coaster. It needs to be the kind of roller coaster someone would actually enjoy. 

So, think about this ultimate roller coaster. 

1. Consider your ideal audience. Will it be a gentler ride for younger kids or will it be a terrifying ride for adventure-seekers? How do you want people to feel? Do you want people to feel scared? Nervous? Excited? Calm? Maybe a mix of all of those emotions? 
2. What kind of theme will it have? See, every roller coaster has a theme. It might be a mountain theme or a space theme or pop culture theme. So, create a theme for your roller coaster. 
3. Decide on the features of your ride. Will it have a huge drop? A loop? A corkscrew turn? 
4. Think of the physics and mechanics of your ride. How will you keep your coaster going from start to finish without stopping?

For your model, you’re going to use:
Duct tape
Paper
Cardboard
A marble
Plastic straws
Popsicle sticks

Don’t forget to experiment and make tons of glorious mistakes. Ultimately, your design is going to be awesome, because it’s yours and it’s coming from your creative mind.