$50 Backyard Rollercoaster

This is great. What happens when you bet a group of friends they can’t build a roller coaster in their backyard for under $50? They build one.

They built it almost entirely out of old forklift pallets, some wood from Home Depot, assorted nails and screws, some caster wheels and a folding seat from an old arena. It was built in just over 9 hours by three people. Once assembled they tested it with a 15lb cinder block — safety first right? The cinder block survived the ride, and by that logic, a 160lb+ person should be fine as well!

Well… they were right! To finish it up and get into the holiday spirit they also decked it out in Christmas lights and let the neighborhood kids use it all night. The total came to $49.27 from Home Depot for the wood and wheels.

Stick around after the break to see a .GIF of it in action!

roller coaster test

We covered a similar backyard roller coaster last year, which featured PVC piping for the rails made by a father for one very lucky child.

[via Reddit]

36 thoughts on “$50 Backyard Rollercoaster

    1. He also had to buy a house that had a backyard…
      I don’t personally consider “tools” to raise his $50 build cost. If it required something fancy (laser cutter or lathe) then I probably would, but it doesn’t look like this build needed anything major.

      1. I’ve ebt my left foot he also went to the barbershop at least 10 times in the last 20 Years. If he hadnt gone there, his hair would have been way to long to see anything or even get trapped in the electric drill. Therefore I’m all for counting the barber of the last 20 Years into the BOM-Calculation. Seriously.

    2. He also probably spent a lot on electricity to power the tools, gas to haul the supplies, and food to give himself energy to build with. Hell, if we want to be really honest and realistic, we should include the cost of the hospital stay when he was born.

      Generally, you don’t include the cost of tools in the project because they a) aren’t consumable and b) aren’t actually part of the project. For my $200 electronics project, should I include $500+ in the quote for the soldering iron, oscilloscope, power supply, etc that I already own? No, that’d be ridiculous.

      Here’s a tip for the entire internet: Don’t be a pedantic ass unless you’re right.

    3. Yeah, and he bought food for the calories he spent working on it. Surely something from his education was involved, somebody spent something on that.

      Come on, it took less than $50 that wasn’t already going to be spent anyway. That should be what counts.

    4. Wood and stuff was included in the price. And there’s nothing stopping them from using a large rock to hammer in those nails. For those without convenient access to large rocks borrowing a hammer from your neighbor will do.

    1. You don’t have neighbors because this guy and his friends made a little roller coaster?

      Well I did not know that there are still asylums around. No wonder you have three cells to yourself.

    1. I work as an amusement park tech. Safe is far from what I would call this. It’s definitely a lot more solid than I expected, but there’s nothing about that thing that says safe for someone else’s kids let alone my own.

  1. I don’t know if I would encourage people to steal the pallets behind Home Depot. – There have been several people arrested doing so at the HD near Sacramento. – A former HD employee

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