Photo by Elliot Ryan
In the spring and summer of 2020, a college student built a working roller coaster in his grandparent’s yard. The student, Elliot Ryan, returned from college in March 2020 when schools closed because of the coronavirus. He had originally planned to visit with his grandparents in Rhode Island during spring break. But there was no call back to school after that, so he stayed with them instead of returning to his native Colorado.
Since this story takes place in Rhode Island, let’s start with some important facts about this非常非常小的状态:
- You can fit 221 Rhode Islands in the state of Texas. You can also fit about nineteen million six hundred thousand Rhode Islands into the surface area of the planet, Jupiter.
罗德岛 - 公共领域，https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=539518
Jupiter - By ESA/Hubble, CC BY 4.0,https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57888670
- 49thstate by size, Delaware, is twice as big as Rhode Island.
- 罗德岛的昵称是“海洋国家”。选择此昵称是为了帮助补偿尺寸（我不知道这是否正确，但似乎应该是）。实际上，罗德岛的官方名称是“罗德岛和普罗维登斯种植园”，这是美国50个州中最长的名字。因此，至少对于罗德岛来说，这很大。
大学生决定在院子里建造一个工作的全尺度过山车。这是什么动机？幸运的是，我有机会与Elliot交谈：
新利luck: What got you first interested in roller coasters? Which was the first roller coaster that you rode on?
Elliot: The first roller coaster I road on was in Elitch Gardens in Denver. When I was eight years old, I decided I wanted to build my own wood coaster. Before last summer, the closest I came was building wood jumps for mountain biking.
Cyclone 2 at Elitch Gardens - Creative Commons - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
新利luck: What got you thinking about building a roller coaster in your grandparent’s yard? How did you go about building it?
Elliot: My grandparents had an old play structure in the yard for the grandkids. My brother knew about my roller coaster obsession and helped to plant the seed to go build it. It was not a big lift for my grandparents. They were all in at the first suggestion.
Photo by Elliot Ryan
I did most of the layout and design through trial and error. I measured heights and sketched out roller coaster first drop. The design was by trial and error. I looked at designs of other roller coasters and worked out proportions. At one point I had laid out a turn in the tracks but went with a simpler design.
Photo by Elliot Ryan
对于末端的山丘，我将其设计为比开门的山丘高。但是在院子里的成绩倾斜了，我不指望的是。幸运的是，侧摩擦足以在骑行结束时减速汽车。
新利luck: How did you decide on vertical wheels for rolling and lateral wheels to keep the car on the track?
Elliot：我考虑了不同的方法。最初，我想将轮子放在室外，但是在汽车内部和导轨上构建车轮更容易。我看到其他过山车是这种方式建造的。
Elliot noted that the fulfillment of the project has led to his decision to major in Civil Engineering. His program at St. Michael’s College is coordinated with the University Vermont in Burlington, where he will be taking CE classes for his Bachelor of Science degree.
What is impressive about this project, in addition to the fact that it is just pure fun, is Elliot’s expression of the creative process of engineering at an almost fundamental level. Elliot had a limited academic background for this work, and no experience in engineering process and procedures. But he knew in an intuitive way how to go about conception of the roller coaster, how to design it and iterate the design, and how to build the job. He worked through trial and error. He was able to bounce back from errors along the way with better designs.
过山车在建设完成时进行了几次测试。艾略特（Elliot）的祖父弗雷德·西尔弗布拉特（Fred Silverblatt）博士自愿成为第一位乘客。从开放日开始视频，看来首次航行是成功的。
艾略特（Elliot）正在考虑扩大过山车，以增加更多的山丘和一些转弯。如果扩展轨道将其登上Silverblatt的院子的边缘，可能会出现通行问题。艾略特（Elliot）即将举行的大学课程可以为即将到来的设计提供一些分析背景。但是在夏季，初始版本是设计和构建的，没有任何数字处理。如果在施工期间有任何RFI，Elliot将他们寄给自己并做出相应的回应。
如果您考虑一下，谁不想在院子里有一个工作的木制框架过山车？但是，梦见它是一回事，而设计和构建它是另一回事。欢乐不仅仅是完成的项目和Silverblatt博士在就职期间的快乐（稍加关注）的表情，而是在看到一位崛起的年轻工程师的热情和勤奋以及实现其追求时。
Photo by Elliot Ryan