Rollercoasters are great fun if you can deal with the exhilaration without throwing up or otherwise screaming until you pass out. Of course, the big outdoors ones are a little hard to get to at the moment, what with a pandemic raging outside. However, [3d_coasters] has built a tabletop design that, while it’s too small to ride, is nonetheless quite impressive. (Video, embedded below.)
The coaster is of the launch design. It relies on an elastic cord that is wound up to high tension to launch the train up to speed, with the train then coasting around the rest of the curves on the track. The quality of the modelling is highly impressive, too. The doors at the boarding platform are even actuated to simulate riders boarding the train! Everything is controlled by an Arduino, a handful of micro servos, and a DC motor.
As you might imagine, this project didn’t happen overnight. 600 hours were logged in Fusion 360 developing the track, and slicing the models in Cura for 3D printing took a further 5 hours. The actual printing process itself took 800 hours, not including finishing, so this project certainly isn’t one for the faint of heart. The final model weighs a full 30 lbs.
Believe it or not, we’ve featured 3D printed rollercoasters before, too. Video after the break.
Amazing
Bravo. Super cool.
I wonder what the scale speed is? And if weight could be added the cart to carry momentum and make it a more realistic speed.
20 g at that launch!! lol. All i could think on the launch is “that’s not how roller coasters work”. It would be a pretty incredible ride tho.
There are a bunch of launched coasters, though. Not that fast, of course.
That’s awesome. Need to put some Lego figures in the seats. And put a tiny wireless camera on the front of the cart for some POV action.
If you look at it closely, this resembles the roller coaster, Maxx Force at Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, IL pretty closely, the only difference is the ending is slightly different. Still really cool though!
I’d love to see high speed GoPro footage of the ride. 240fps down to 24 would be 10x slow-mo, and it would still feel zippy.
That’s very impressive. I imagine the cockroaches from Joe’s Apartment would have a blast with this thing.
That coaster is screaming out for a wireless 6DOF [1] sensor seated in it.
1. Six degrees of freedom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_freedom