Marble Roller Coaster Project

Gravitational potential energy and kinetic energy.

Marble roller coaster project.

We re doing the roller coasters. Ideal for rapid redesigning and exploring the conversion of potential energy to kinetic energy and momentum. Create the longest track possible without letting the marble fall off. Build your own marble roller coaster in this project and find out.

In an isolated system such as the roller coaster the total energy remains constant. This project has a few things that help this work. One of them is one of newton s laws of motion that says that an object in motion will stay in motion and an object in rest will stay in rest. Roller coasters rely on two types of energy to operate.

This project reaches a wide span of grade ranges from k 12. This is a fun project that kids will love and can also learn some science. Get the lesson plan and project sheet for this activity step 1. You ll build a roller coaster track for marbles using foam pipe insulation and masking tape and see how much of an initial drop is required to get the marble to loop the loop.

I d like to note that the concept for this project is not my own but the building and teaching techniques are. Gravity also make this work. The roller coaster is a great demonstration of the law of conservation of energy. The marble roller coaster is an open ended challenge.