Roller coasters come in all sizes and configurations. Roller coasters are designed to be intense machines that get the riders’ adrenaline pumping. Ever since my first roller coaster ride, I knew I was hooked. I cannot get enough of the thrilling sensation caused by these works of engineering. When people board these rides, they put their faith in the engineers who designed the rides and the people who maintain and operate the rides. In this paper, I will bring to your attention a specific instance when the operation of one of these coasters came into question and led to a very tragic incident. From this, I will look into the events leading up to the incident and evaluate the decisions made by the people involved.
During late 2013, in Arlington, Texas, a family of three stood in line at the popular amusement park called Six Flags. The family was raring to ride the rollercoaster deemed the tallest steel hybrid coaster in the world named the Texas Giant. Once it was their turn to board the coaster, the family members loaded into the carts and were advised to lower the lap bar and listen for it to click. When they did so, the mother, known to media as Rosa Esparza, noticed that her lap bar only clicked once. Concerned for her safety, she caught the attention of the ride attendant and asked if she was secure. He proceeded to tell her “as long as she heard it click she was fine.”
The coaster then was clear for take off. The coaster made its way to the top of the first hill, and as the cart descended and turned the first corner, Rosa was thrown from the cart. Rosa dropped out of the cart onto a metal support beam more than 75 feet below the place where she was ejected and came to rest on top of the roof of a tunnel. When the famil...
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...e to occur, people would still ride the coaster and could easily get hurt, especially if this decision was combined with decision 1. This would end up compromising the general desire for happiness and would be self-defeating. Since the public would be hurt, they would not be happy; and since the public would not want the possibility of getting injured, they would most likely not ride the ride, which would hurt the park. This decision would be determined to be unethical.
In conclusion, the many decisions leading to the accident caused lots of pain and unhappiness to the public and the family of Rosa Esparza. After the accident, the park retracted their initial desire for only the lap bar. A harness was added as an extra precaution. In the future, I hope that coaster engineers everywhere can learn from this tragedy and create safe coasters for everyone’s enjoyment.
James A. Young died Thursday in a roller coaster accident at Six Flags Amusement Park in Chicago, IL. While riding the American Eagle, James’s safety harness came unbuckled while in a climb and he was launched out of his seat on the descent at one hundred and twentyseven feet above the ground, breaking his spine and severing his nervous system. James died shortly after impact. James’s wife, Diana, was a seat behind her husband when the accident happened and she describes the incident as heart wrenching. The owner of Six Flags has made a memorial speech in memory of James and his family that is expected to be announced this Thursday, July 30th at 3 PM. The speech will take place at Six
One day Blake, Quinn, and their two friends Maggie and her boyfriend, Russ go to an amusement park together, called Darian Lake. They are clueless when they arrive as to how this event will change them forever. At the park, they ride on various rides. One of the rides was different from all of the others. It was the Kamikaze. It was a roller coaster, brand new to the park. As Blake got in line for the ride, his friends were right beside him. They were all excited to go on the new ride, but Blake was terrified. It reminded him of the time he was seven and his school bus got into a accident and went screaming over guardrails, almost to his death. He did not want to ride this new ride, however his friends pushed him to do it. Once on the ride, he was safely harnessed in and the ride took off, screaming down steep hills and loops. Everything was fine, until the structure started to shake and beams started to give way! There was now a twenty foot gap in the track! Blake thought it’d be the end of him and his friends, when he saw it. The coaster dove straight down into the gap, about to hit asphalt. Then the next thing Blake knew, the ride had ended. He waited in his seat, wondering what had happened. The ride had been built to give way like that. The coaster had still been on the track, when it fell through the big gap. He turned to the track and saw the beams that had fallen rising back again. It was all a stunt and everyone else had known about it except him! Blake went through the rest of the day shaken by it, until he met a girl at a game booth. He thought she was so beautiful and flirted with her for a little while. Her name was Cassandra. Then he won a prize from her booth, a stuffed bear. Inside the bear’s pocket, was an invite to another amusement park. He showed his friends, then looked back for the girl who’d given him the bear. She was gone and a new person was standing in her place, in control of the game. The new person didn’t know what Blake was talking about...
Ever wondered how roller coasters work? It’s not with an engine! Roller coasters rely on a motorized chain and a series of phenomena to keep them going. Phenomena are situations or facts that have been observed and proven to exist. A few types of phenomena that help rollercoasters are gravity, kinetic and potential energy, and inertia. Gravity pulls roller coasters along the track as they’re going downhill. Potential and kinetic energy help rollercoasters to ascend hills and gain enough momentum to descend them and finish the track. Inertia keeps passengers pressed towards the outside of a loop-the-loop and in their seat. Gravity, potential and kinetic energy, and inertia are three types of phenomena that can be observed by watching roller
The failure tragically occurred on the night of the dance party, with the added weight of all of the partygoers proving too much for the supporting bolts to handle. At 7:05 P.M. one of the upper walkway’s supporting bolts failed causing the rest of the connections to break and “unzip” (Chronology). The upper walkway crashed onto the lower walkway causing both to fall onto the lobby floor below. Numerous key factors are often cited as having left the construction project vulnerable to such fatal design flaws.
As the coaster gets higher in the air, there is a greater distance gravity can pull it down. The
The story starts with Eddie, an old man (Eighty years old to be exact) who works at Ruby Pier, a carnival-like amusement park. Eddie has worked there for most all of his life (except when he served in the war), and, even though today is his birthday, he still does everything the same way he would do things any other day. Today would be different though. A thrill ride called Freddy's Free Fall had been stuck with all its passengers at the top of the ride, and it was rather tilted towards the ground. Eddie raced over to tell the man running the ride to get the passengers off and then press the release button. The man did and when he pressed the release button, the cart where the passengers had been fell to the ground. In the midst of all this, Eddie saw a little girl right under the spot where the cart would fall, and, despite his bad leg, he ran over to save the little girl as the cart was falling. All he felt was her little hands and then, pain followed by the feeling of floating.
“Chili peppers” I yelled has I let go of the marble to have it go spiraling down the giant drop and doing continuous loops. In this project I had to research, design, construct, and test my roller coaster, I had to have the safest, and most fun roller coaster in the grade. In this paragraph I will explain all the steps I had to do to accomplish this task. First, I had to research and make a design. When I researched I found many fascinating facts, like, there is a steel roller coaster, and a wooden roller coaster. After I finished researching I had to create a design for my roller coaster. I decided to have a giant drop at the beginning of the roller coaster but not so big that it would to throw the marble off. After that I decided to do two
The National Society of Professional Engineers Code of Ethics lays out guidelines and standards to which all engineers should abide when making professional decisions and communicating with their peers and the public. Ethics and communications played a large role in the cause of the event and the end result of the mission. The following section will discuss the ethics of the events that transpired prior to the launch, the communication of the crews and the NASA public relations office, and the ethics of the actions taken by the engineers after the incident.
The aerospace industry is fairly new in our day in age. It has been recorded in history that the first flight ever by man took place in Kitty Hawk, NC roughly 100 years ago. Since that first model, drastic improvements have been made in aerospace technology. Aerospace has evolved from simple prop planes to sound barrier breaking jets and even to space shuttles. The very definition of aerospace in the adjective or active form is “of or relating to aerospace, to vehicles used in aerospace or the manufacture of such vehicles, or to travel in aerospace.” In general, aerospace deals with any dynamic manufactured vehicle that travels above the surface of the earth. This, as you might expect, leaves two possibilities, the atmosphere or our earth, and outer space. Such basic examples of aerospace vehicles are Cessna planes, Black Hawk helicopters, Goodyear blimps and the Columbia Space Shuttle. Throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, aerospace has and will continue to be an integrated part of our society.
So after waiting line forever they open up the gates and everyone takes off to their favorite rides. My group dashes for the indoor roller coaster. So considering it’s indoor I’m thinking its nothing to crazy. Well I was wrong. The flight of fear goes 0 to 60 in a matter of just a couple of seconds and does 4 loops and 3 corkscrews. We get into line and we are one of the first to aboard this death machine. After hearing the death screeches from the other people in front of us I was officially petrified.
As soon as the cart reached the top of the tracks I knew we were in for a long bumpy ride. The cart descended, I gritted my teeth and pushed my legs against the seat in front of me to brace myself. I'm screaming now, this is my first roller coaster, I do not know what to expect. All I could see was my life flashing in front of my eyes and the moment just before I decided to jump onto this roller coaster of death.
“Even though roller coasters propel you through the air, shoot you through tunnels, and zip you down and around many hills and loops, they are quite safe and can prove to be a great way to get scared, feel that sinking feeling in your stomach, and still come out of it wanting to do it all over again (1).” Thanks to the manipulation of gravitational and centripetal forces humans have created one of the most exhilarating attractions. Even though new roller coasters are created continuously in the hope to create breathtaking and terrifying thrills, the fundamental principles of physics remain the same. A roller coaster consists of connected cars that move on tracks due to gravity and momentum. Believe it or not, an engine is not required for most of the ride. The only power source needed is used to get to the top first hill in order to obtain a powerful launch. Physics plays a huge part in the function of roller coasters. Gravity, potential and kinetic energy, centripetal forces, conservation of energy, friction, and acceleration are some of the concepts included.
Ethics is the moral behavior that guides our actions; it motivates us in our personal behavior and is relevant in a business setting as well. Many organizations have set forth a set of guidelines known as a “Code of Ethics”. The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, being one of these organizations, has set forth their code as a requirement for students and engineer members to adhere to. Heading towards a career in electrical engineering I choose this organization to elaborate on for my ethics project.
Engineering ethics focuses on the behavior of the individual - the engineer, and the development of ethical standards governing their professional activities. Engineering ethics has always existed as a set of rules or a system that governs the behavior of an engineer. Among its main provisions, we can attribute such as the need to faithfully perform engineering work that would bring welfare and do not cause harm to people; be accountable for engineering professional activities; a good relationship ( customs and rules governing relations ) with other engineer, etc.
I have always been fascinated by carnival rides. It amazes me that average, ordinary people eagerly trade in the serenity of the ground for the chance to be tossed through the air like vegetables in a food processor. It amazes me that at some time in history someone thought that people would enjoy this, and that person invented what must have been the first of these terrifying machines. For me, it is precisely the thrill and excitement of having survived the ride that keeps me coming back for more.