Roller Coaster Tycoon IRL

Additive manufacturing has come a long way, but surely we’re not at the point where we can 3D-print a roller coaster, right? It turns out that you can, as long as 1/25th scale is good enough for you.

Some people build model railroads, but [Matt Schmotzer] has always had a thing for roller coasters. Not content with RollerCoaster Tycoon, [Matt] decided to build an accurate and working model of Invertigo, a boomerang coaster at King’s Park, the coaster nirvana in Cincinnati, Ohio. Covering a sheet of plywood and standing about 3′ tall, [Matt]’s model recreates the original in painstaking detail, from the supporting towers and bracing to the track sections themselves. It appears that he printed everything in sections just like the original was manufactured, with sections bolted together. Even though all the parts were sanded and vapor smoothed, the tracks themselves were too rough to use, so those were replaced with plastic tubing. But everything else is printed, and everything works. An Arduino Mega controls the lift motors, opens and closes the safety bars on the cars, and operates the passenger gates and drop floor in the station. The video below shows it in action.

Fancy a coaster of your own, but want something a little bigger? We understand completely.

13 thoughts on “Roller Coaster Tycoon IRL

  1. It’s gonna suck when the bouncy-castle explodes because you forgot to have a mechanic walk by it and patrons go flying all over the park, where they won’t buy your overpriced balloons and soda.

    1. Everyone has an opinion of the ride, but I started with a small footprint coaster before branching off to the big ones. Can’t make everyone happy. Check out my Instagram if you want to see the big guns @print_my_ride

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