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Engineering In Roller Coasters

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Engineering In Roller Coasters
Engineering in Roller Coasters

Emanuel O. Contreras

College Algebra

Ch- ch- ch- ch- ch, as you’re entering your favorite amusement park, you hear the chain hills caring a cart full of people. Soon after the sound of the chains is replaced by people screaming as they go downhill at top speeds. Your stomach drops, the combination of fear, anxiety, and excitement build up more as you and your friends find a place to park in the maze of cars. You finally find an available spot and go through the long process of actually getting into the amusement park. Due to the park barley opening you and your friends decide to go to the biggest ride in the park knowing that the more time you wait, the more the queue line will grow. While waiting
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You start to question everything about roller coasters such as who started them? Why did they start, but most importantly, you question the engineering. To know the answers about the engineering though, we have to take a step back several years to when they first started, then to how they transformed and got to the way they are today. So, without any further to do lets get into the history of the engineering in roller coasters. Ozanu, R., in (2008) American Coaster Enthusiasts Inc., The name “roller coaster” comes from the term “Russian Mountains”. The inspiration for the modern roller coaster was a very simple ride that looked like a slide. According to Adam Sandy in Roller Coaster History How It Started (2006), during the 17th century, the Russian Mountains slides reached new heights across Russia in the form of ice slides. As the name suggests, these slides were frozen over with ice and riders were sent careening down the slippery slopes at tremendous speeds in sleds made from wood or just plain blocks of ice. The engineered design of the Russian ice slides were tall wooden structures with ice frozen over a long sloping ramp. These slides would often rise up seventy or eighty feet and the ramps stretched for hundreds more. The way the …show more content…
I would simply enjoy the way they looked, the twist and turns, the sound of the carts roaring past breaking the still sound barrier, and most importantly the way they worked. Even as a young child I knew that math had to be used to come up with such creations, and I knew that when I grew up I wanted to be the behind the design of the latest coasters making everyone on them scream, laugh, and have a good time. As I grew older I found out that it was engineers that were behind the creations I grew up to love. When looking into engineering though, showed by the Ohio University/News & Resources. “Amusement and Park and Roller Coaster Engineering”. Poster 06/15/2016, I found out that there were many kinds of engineers ranging from civil, electrical, mechanical, to roller coaster

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