ADDITIONAL MATHEMATICS PROJECT WORK 2017

SELANGOR (1) – ENGLISH VERSION

PART 1
a) Brief history on roller coaster
Way back in the 18th century Russia's Catherine the Great was sitting around one summer wishing it
were cold. She missed those days when Slavs could hop into small carts and ride down a 70-foot hill
of ice. What was an empress to do when the snow melted? After much thought she had an answer:

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add wheels.

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Fast forward to the heat of today. Somewhere out there people are waiting to ride the descendants
of Catherine's coasters. But now those wooden carts are made of steel and carry names like Goliath,

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Millennium Force, and Alpen Geist. People still seek speed but also modern thrills like loops, turns,

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and drops that make them question that chili dog/cotton candy lunch combo. Indeed, summer is

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here and so is the desire for roller coaster rides. From Disneyland to Disneyworld, people are
screaming through the loops of old favourites and dropping fast from the even higher hills. In recent

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years, park owners have spent up to $15 million on new roller coasters that boast the titles of
biggest, longest, or fastest.

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In 1884 preacher LaMarcus A. Thompson decided to build a new ride at New York's Coney Island to

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divert attention from the local beer gardens. He built two parallel tracks, with individual cars that
climbed 15 feet and zoomed by at 4 miles per hour.The plan worked. People swarmed to Coney
Island to both ride and watch Thompson's "inclined-plane railway." Charging a nickel a ride,

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Thompson paid for the entire project in just three weeks. And by 1888 he had built nearly 50 roller
coasters in the United States and Europe.

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The summer of 2015 saw the rise of a new giga-coaster—breaking the 300 ft. horizontal barrier—the
Fury 325 in Charlotte, N.C. Ranking in the top five worldwide for height and clocking in at 95 mph,
this is a ride thrill seekers will remember. "Thompson recognized and exploited all the ingredients of
a successful amusement ride," writes Judith A. Adams in The American Amusement Park Industry.
"His coasters combined an appearance of danger with actual safety, thrilled riders with exhilarating
speed, and allowed the public to intimately experience the Industrial Revolution's new technologies
of gears, steel, and dazzling electric lights."
Thompson's ride also caught the attention of other entrepreneurs. To draw crowds, they advertised
improvements like larger hills, chain lifts, and oval tracks. By 1900 there were hundreds of roller
coasters across the country. The roller coaster continued to flourish through the 1920s. As speeds
increased so did the need for safety features like under-track wheels, lap bars, and "no standing"
signs. But the Great Depression and World War II diverted the public's attention from amusement
parks. Money for entertainment was scarce, and wood and rubber were needed for the war effort.

Unlike its cousin the carousel, the roller coaster experienced a rebirth when Walt Disney opened the

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nation's first theme park, Disneyland. In addition to increased speed and new heights, Disney's roller
coaster provided a smooth ride using a new tubular steel. It attracted entire families, not just

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eccentric thrill seekers. Other theme parks would follow Disney's lead, each including new rides with

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broad appeal. And by the 1970s a "coaster boom" was underway as teams of engineers designed
and constructed new rides.

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b) Mathematics used for roller coaster

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Building roller coasters requires a large amount of math. First, roller coaster designers must know
the maximum velocity of a train without it going off the track. The slightest mix up could be a matter

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of life and death for the riders on the coaster. The math starts right when an engineer begins to
think about building. He or she must know the exact height, length and if it is even possible

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mathematically to create. They need to know if the first drop can give the train enough speed to

of the material they will need.

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generate itself around the track, or most importantly what the track will be made of and how much

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If the engineer decides to make the track out of wood he or she must know that the roller coaster

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cannot be as high as a steel coaster and if they can make it as tall or taller they must know angles,
weight of the train, and how fast a train can go. If deciding to build a steel roller coaster the
engineer must decide if they want to make a launch coaster or a classical “crank” coaster. For a
launch coaster, the designer needs to determine the amount of stress that can be put on the
launching gear. Going hand and hand with that is the weight of the cars. For instance, if the cars are
too heavy for the launching gear the train won’t get through the ride, or the gear could break
completely which could cause injury and loss of money. For a crank gear the weight of the train is
also crucial. If too heavy the chain will snap and the cars will go down the incline that they were
going up. The amount of stress the chain can withstand is important as well, but this goes without
saying.
No matter the material weather wood or steel the designer must consider the slope of the drop, the
number of inverts, the amount of turns, height, speed, length, and even the number of breaks that
the ride needs. The slope and height of the first drop are probably the most important features of
the coaster. These are the most important features because they determine whether the train will
get through the track at a constant speed and if they can make the loops or bank turns. If there are
too many inverts or turns the train won’t make it back to the train house anyway even if the drop
seems to be big enough to remain at a constant speed.

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The length is also an issue in how high you must make the drop and what angle to make it at. If the
coaster is too long for the train to keep a constant speed than the engineer must make the launch

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more powerful or the drop higher and steeper. If too short the designer must incorporate breaks on

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the track to slow the train up so the cars don’t come crashing through the train house, which could
injure or possibly even kill somebody. The breaks must be placed very strategically so the train won’t

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stop in the middle of the ride. An area that may be overlooked with roller coasters and math is

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operating. The person operating the ride needs to know the exact time to launch a train, because if

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collide with one another.
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there is more than one train running and the operator launches too soon two trains could possibly

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Finally, one of the most crucial parts of building a roller coaster is knowing the cost and how much

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money you have. If somebody thinks of an amazing coaster, but they don’t have the money there is

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no point of even trying to make the ride work. Not only do you need to know the cost of the ride an
engineer also needs to put the amount of insurance into account. The more money you have, the

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better roller coaster you can create.

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These are some of the ways roller coasters involve math, and what it takes to make an amazing thrill

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ride. Hopefully more and more people will extend their learning so more and more coasters can be
built.
PART 2
Height above ground
Time (s)
(m)
0 65
1 43
2 26.6
3 15.2
4 8.2
5 5
6 5

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7 7.6
8 12.2
9
10
18.2
25
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11
12
32
38.6
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13
14
44.2
48.2
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15 50

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16 49
17 44.6
18
19
36.2
23.2
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20 5

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a) at 20 second.

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b) Minimum height is 5m and maximum height is 65m

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PART 3
Method 1
y + βt2 = αt
y = -βt2 + αt
y
  t  
t
Y = y/t
m = -β
X=t

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c=α

t 0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.25

y/t 0.80 0.71 0.41 0.31 0.02

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m
0.71  0.8
1  0.5
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m  0.18
β = 0.18
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Y = 0.18X + α

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(0.8) + (0.18)(0.5) = α
α = 0.89

Method 2
y + βt2 = α
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substitute with two values of y and t2
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0.4 + 0.25β = 0.5α ----------1
0.71 + β = α -----------2
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Substitute 2 into 1
0.4 + 0.25β = 0.5(0.71 + β)
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β = 0.18

0.71 + 0.18 = α
α = 0.89
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Substitute the value of β in equation 2

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PART 4

a) My roller coaster function

h(t) = -0.1t3 + 3.4t2 - 22t + 70

A graph was plotted using the table below

Height
time (s) (m)
0 70
1 51.3

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2 38.8
3 31.9
4 30
5
6
32.5
38.8
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7 48.3
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8
9
60.4
74.5
t w
10
11
90
106.3
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12
13
122.8
138.9
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14
15
154
167.5
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16
17
178.8
187.3

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18
19
20
192.4
193.5
190
a t
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b) i. Time Interval when the roller coaster is increasing is 5s – 19x
ii. Time interval when the roller coaster is decreasing is 0 - 4s
iii. Maximum Height is 190m while minimum height is 30m
iv) Domain : (0 , 20) 0 ≤ t ≤ 20
Range : (30 , 193.5) 30 ≤ h ≤ 193.5
 210
200
190
180
170
160
150

t. k
140
130

k
120
Height (m)

110
100
o r
w
90
80
70
c t
60

j e
50
40
r o
30
20
s p
10

t h
a
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

d m Time (s)

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FURTHER EXPLORATION

i) 34
33
32
31
30
29
28
27
26

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25
24
23
22
21
20
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Height (m)

19
18

w
17

t
16
15
14
13

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12
11
10
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9
8
7
p r
6
5

h s
t
4
3
2
1
a
m
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65

dd Time (s)

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ii) The diameter is 30m, thus the radius (amplitude of the graph) will be 15m
The period is 60 s, substituting in the formula
2 2 
 
P 60 30
The centre of the wheel is 17m above the ground, so that will be the midline.
The cosine pattern is upside down, so the formula is

h(t )  15 cos t  17
30

iii) Substitute the t = 45 in the formula above



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h(45)  15 cos (45)  17
30
Height is 17m

iv) Substitute the value of 15m into the formula

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15  15 cos

t  17
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15  17 
30
 cos t
t w
 15
2 
30

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cos 1  t
15 30
(82.34)(30)
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
t  13.7 s
t

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Since the Ferris wheel will be going up and down, there will be to point where the height will be at

h
t
15m, thus
30s – 13.7s = 16.3s
30 s + 16.3s = 46.3s
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The time will be 13.7s and 46.3s

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