Roller Coasters History

Roller Coasters :]

Roller coasters have been a good part of American History. Roller coasters are exciting, fun but sometimes they are really scary. It all started with ice slides, long iced wooden slides that can be up to 70 ft, they were mostly popular in Russia around the 17th century. Riders wood slide down the slide in a sled and land in a sand pile.
Over the years more countries started to gain the interest in this idea. Like France, France took this idea and tried to make it there own but in France the climate tends to be warmer so the ice was melting. Well the French continued with the Russians idea and tried to add twist and turns to the track to make it more complex.
The First actual roller coaster was…show more content…
Miller worked for Thompson and also worked with designers like Fredrick Ingersoll and Fred and Josiah Pearce. 2 Around 1910 Miller created a device that stopped the train from going backwards on the lift hill. It was attached to the track and connected to the rungs of the chain [known as the safety dog chain]. Miller patented the “Miller under friction wheel” in 1919, also known as the “upstop wheel”. It was a wheel that was under the track and would keep the train coasters from going off track. This was a big step in Roller coaster designing and in Coaster History. Now designers can make steep drops and sharp turns and still have the coaster cars be going at exhilarating speeds.
Miller’s “Miller under friction wheel” is still used in almost all roller coasters. He also had his share in making “scream machines”. Miller’s greatest designs were in the 1920’s, and he continues form there and he kept designing coasters all over the world, until he died, and didn’t get to finish his roller coaster project in Houston, Texas, June, 24,…show more content…
It’s like pulling your sled down the top of a big hill. You build up potential energy at the top if the hill and as you go down the hill it turns into kinetic energy. Like if your riding your bike or driving your car, once you start going down the hill gravity takes over and all that stored potential energy turns into kinetic energy. The top of the first hill is where the max for potential energy is. And as the coaster train goes down the first hill, all the stored potential energy is transferred into kinetic energy. And it is also where the max kinetic energy is. It goes over the second hill and then up the loop and as it is at the top of the loop it has a high potential energy and then that energy is transferred into kinetic energy as the coaster train goes through the rest of the track. Coaster tracks serve to channel this force – it controls the way the coaster car moves and where it goes. Like at the bottom of the first hill as the car goes up the hill gravity pulls on it, so that it decelerates. And in the first hill as the coaster train goes down gravity tends to pull it down towards the ground as it accelerates. Like in Newton’s first Law – an object in motion must stay in motion.